How American Went Haywire

[Wonky3]

I thought this was an interesting read. 


FANTASYLAND
How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
by Kurt Andersen


KIRKUS REVIEW

When did Americans come to shun reality? When did the American experiment become a congeries of solipsisms?
“As I pass by fish in barrels,” writes Studio 360 host Andersen (True Believers, 2012, etc.) at the outset of this entertaining tour of American irreality, “I will often shoot them.” Indeed he does, but then, as writers as various as H.L. Mencken and Christopher Hitchens long ago discovered, American society offers endless targets. Andersen finds a climacteric in Karl Rove’s pronouncement, a dozen years ago, that those people who live in “the reality-based community” need to understand that “that’s not the way the world really works anymore.” True enough: Andersen closes with the rise of Trump-ism and its “critical mass of fantasy and lies” that is in danger of becoming “something much worse than nasty, oafish, reality-show pseudoconservatism.” It’s not just the Trumpies who are ruining things for everyone; by the author’s account, the nice liberals who refuse to vaccinate their children are as much a part of the problem as those who flock to creation museums and megachurches. All are waystations of Andersen’s “Fantasyland,” an assemblage not just of scattered false beliefs, but whole lifestyles cobbled from them, which lands us in the 1960s and its ethos: “Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative.” It’s not, but that’s where we are today, at least by Andersen’s account, though he hastens to add that approving nods to political correctness are not necessarily the same thing as endorsing perniciousness. Throughout, the author names names—Dr. Oz, for one, won’t be happy, and neither will Oprah—and takes no prisoners, offering incitement for the rest of us to do the same. “We need to become less squishy,” Andersen writes, and instead gird up for some reality-based arguments against the “dangerously untrue and unreal.”
A spirited, often entertaining rant against things as they are.


Yes TVGuy, there is one less than glowing review: Saved you the trouble and posted it here

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/books...wire.html/

[Wonky3]

I thought this was an interesting read. 


FANTASYLAND
How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
by Kurt Andersen


KIRKUS REVIEW

When did Americans come to shun reality? When did the American experiment become a congeries of solipsisms?
“As I pass by fish in barrels,” writes Studio 360 host Andersen (True Believers, 2012, etc.) at the outset of this entertaining tour of American irreality, “I will often shoot them.” Indeed he does, but then, as writers as various as H.L. Mencken and Christopher Hitchens long ago discovered, American society offers endless targets. Andersen finds a climacteric in Karl Rove’s pronouncement, a dozen years ago, that those people who live in “the reality-based community” need to understand that “that’s not the way the world really works anymore.” True enough: Andersen closes with the rise of Trump-ism and its “critical mass of fantasy and lies” that is in danger of becoming “something much worse than nasty, oafish, reality-show pseudoconservatism.” It’s not just the Trumpies who are ruining things for everyone; by the author’s account, the nice liberals who refuse to vaccinate their children are as much a part of the problem as those who flock to creation museums and megachurches. All are waystations of Andersen’s “Fantasyland,” an assemblage not just of scattered false beliefs, but whole lifestyles cobbled from them, which lands us in the 1960s and its ethos: “Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative.” It’s not, but that’s where we are today, at least by Andersen’s account, though he hastens to add that approving nods to political correctness are not necessarily the same thing as endorsing perniciousness. Throughout, the author names names—Dr. Oz, for one, won’t be happy, and neither will Oprah—and takes no prisoners, offering incitement for the rest of us to do the same. “We need to become less squishy,” Andersen writes, and instead gird up for some reality-based arguments against the “dangerously untrue and unreal.”
A spirited, often entertaining rant against things as they are.


Yes TVGuy, there is one less than glowing review: Saved you the trouble and posted it here

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/books...wire.html/

Well, okay then...
Anyone other than Scrapper reading "50 Shades of Grey"? 

[GPnative]

I thought this was an interesting read. 


FANTASYLAND
How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
by Kurt Andersen


KIRKUS REVIEW

When did Americans come to shun reality? When did the American experiment become a congeries of solipsisms?
“As I pass by fish in barrels,” writes Studio 360 host Andersen (True Believers, 2012, etc.) at the outset of this entertaining tour of American irreality, “I will often shoot them.” Indeed he does, but then, as writers as various as H.L. Mencken and Christopher Hitchens long ago discovered, American society offers endless targets. Andersen finds a climacteric in Karl Rove’s pronouncement, a dozen years ago, that those people who live in “the reality-based community” need to understand that “that’s not the way the world really works anymore.” True enough: Andersen closes with the rise of Trump-ism and its “critical mass of fantasy and lies” that is in danger of becoming “something much worse than nasty, oafish, reality-show pseudoconservatism.” It’s not just the Trumpies who are ruining things for everyone; by the author’s account, the nice liberals who refuse to vaccinate their children are as much a part of the problem as those who flock to creation museums and megachurches. All are waystations of Andersen’s “Fantasyland,” an assemblage not just of scattered false beliefs, but whole lifestyles cobbled from them, which lands us in the 1960s and its ethos: “Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative.” It’s not, but that’s where we are today, at least by Andersen’s account, though he hastens to add that approving nods to political correctness are not necessarily the same thing as endorsing perniciousness. Throughout, the author names names—Dr. Oz, for one, won’t be happy, and neither will Oprah—and takes no prisoners, offering incitement for the rest of us to do the same. “We need to become less squishy,” Andersen writes, and instead gird up for some reality-based arguments against the “dangerously untrue and unreal.”
A spirited, often entertaining rant against things as they are.


Yes TVGuy, there is one less than glowing review: Saved you the trouble and posted it here

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/books...wire.html/

Well, okay then...
Anyone other than Scrapper reading "50 Shades of Grey"? 

I read Readers Digest on the can, does that count?

[chuck white]

I thought this was an interesting read. 


FANTASYLAND
How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
by Kurt Andersen


KIRKUS REVIEW

When did Americans come to shun reality? When did the American experiment become a congeries of solipsisms?
“As I pass by fish in barrels,” writes Studio 360 host Andersen (True Believers, 2012, etc.) at the outset of this entertaining tour of American irreality, “I will often shoot them.” Indeed he does, but then, as writers as various as H.L. Mencken and Christopher Hitchens long ago discovered, American society offers endless targets. Andersen finds a climacteric in Karl Rove’s pronouncement, a dozen years ago, that those people who live in “the reality-based community” need to understand that “that’s not the way the world really works anymore.” True enough: Andersen closes with the rise of Trump-ism and its “critical mass of fantasy and lies” that is in danger of becoming “something much worse than nasty, oafish, reality-show pseudoconservatism.” It’s not just the Trumpies who are ruining things for everyone; by the author’s account, the nice liberals who refuse to vaccinate their children are as much a part of the problem as those who flock to creation museums and megachurches. All are waystations of Andersen’s “Fantasyland,” an assemblage not just of scattered false beliefs, but whole lifestyles cobbled from them, which lands us in the 1960s and its ethos: “Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative.” It’s not, but that’s where we are today, at least by Andersen’s account, though he hastens to add that approving nods to political correctness are not necessarily the same thing as endorsing perniciousness. Throughout, the author names names—Dr. Oz, for one, won’t be happy, and neither will Oprah—and takes no prisoners, offering incitement for the rest of us to do the same. “We need to become less squishy,” Andersen writes, and instead gird up for some reality-based arguments against the “dangerously untrue and unreal.”
A spirited, often entertaining rant against things as they are.


Yes TVGuy, there is one less than glowing review: Saved you the trouble and posted it here

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/books...wire.html/

Well, okay then...
Anyone other than Scrapper reading "50 Shades of Grey"? 

I read Readers Digest on the can, does that count?

I got the Crayola box of, Fifty shades of grey.

(I though it was about aliens)

[Wonky3]

I thought this was an interesting read. 


FANTASYLAND
How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
by Kurt Andersen


KIRKUS REVIEW

When did Americans come to shun reality? When did the American experiment become a congeries of solipsisms?
“As I pass by fish in barrels,” writes Studio 360 host Andersen (True Believers, 2012, etc.) at the outset of this entertaining tour of American irreality, “I will often shoot them.” Indeed he does, but then, as writers as various as H.L. Mencken and Christopher Hitchens long ago discovered, American society offers endless targets. Andersen finds a climacteric in Karl Rove’s pronouncement, a dozen years ago, that those people who live in “the reality-based community” need to understand that “that’s not the way the world really works anymore.” True enough: Andersen closes with the rise of Trump-ism and its “critical mass of fantasy and lies” that is in danger of becoming “something much worse than nasty, oafish, reality-show pseudoconservatism.” It’s not just the Trumpies who are ruining things for everyone; by the author’s account, the nice liberals who refuse to vaccinate their children are as much a part of the problem as those who flock to creation museums and megachurches. All are waystations of Andersen’s “Fantasyland,” an assemblage not just of scattered false beliefs, but whole lifestyles cobbled from them, which lands us in the 1960s and its ethos: “Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative.” It’s not, but that’s where we are today, at least by Andersen’s account, though he hastens to add that approving nods to political correctness are not necessarily the same thing as endorsing perniciousness. Throughout, the author names names—Dr. Oz, for one, won’t be happy, and neither will Oprah—and takes no prisoners, offering incitement for the rest of us to do the same. “We need to become less squishy,” Andersen writes, and instead gird up for some reality-based arguments against the “dangerously untrue and unreal.”
A spirited, often entertaining rant against things as they are.


Yes TVGuy, there is one less than glowing review: Saved you the trouble and posted it here

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/books...wire.html/

Well, okay then...
Anyone other than Scrapper reading "50 Shades of Grey"? 

I read Readers Digest on the can, does that count?

Damn right it counts! Reading is reading. 
But, wonder why you want someone editing the author's stuff? (As happens with most Readers Digest books) 
Don't forget the value of reading the back of cereal boxes at breakfast. Some good stuff there.
And, don't be afraid to give up on something a third of the way in if you are sure it stinks. Once in a blue moon you might miss out on something really good in the last two thirds, but seldom in my experience. 
(And remember, Jesus never wrote a word)

[chuck white]

I thought this was an interesting read. 


FANTASYLAND
How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
by Kurt Andersen


KIRKUS REVIEW

When did Americans come to shun reality? When did the American experiment become a congeries of solipsisms?
“As I pass by fish in barrels,” writes Studio 360 host Andersen (True Believers, 2012, etc.) at the outset of this entertaining tour of American irreality, “I will often shoot them.” Indeed he does, but then, as writers as various as H.L. Mencken and Christopher Hitchens long ago discovered, American society offers endless targets. Andersen finds a climacteric in Karl Rove’s pronouncement, a dozen years ago, that those people who live in “the reality-based community” need to understand that “that’s not the way the world really works anymore.” True enough: Andersen closes with the rise of Trump-ism and its “critical mass of fantasy and lies” that is in danger of becoming “something much worse than nasty, oafish, reality-show pseudoconservatism.” It’s not just the Trumpies who are ruining things for everyone; by the author’s account, the nice liberals who refuse to vaccinate their children are as much a part of the problem as those who flock to creation museums and megachurches. All are waystations of Andersen’s “Fantasyland,” an assemblage not just of scattered false beliefs, but whole lifestyles cobbled from them, which lands us in the 1960s and its ethos: “Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative.” It’s not, but that’s where we are today, at least by Andersen’s account, though he hastens to add that approving nods to political correctness are not necessarily the same thing as endorsing perniciousness. Throughout, the author names names—Dr. Oz, for one, won’t be happy, and neither will Oprah—and takes no prisoners, offering incitement for the rest of us to do the same. “We need to become less squishy,” Andersen writes, and instead gird up for some reality-based arguments against the “dangerously untrue and unreal.”
A spirited, often entertaining rant against things as they are.


Yes TVGuy, there is one less than glowing review: Saved you the trouble and posted it here

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/books...wire.html/

Well, okay then...
Anyone other than Scrapper reading "50 Shades of Grey"? 

I read Readers Digest on the can, does that count?

Damn right it counts! Reading is reading. 
But, wonder why you want someone editing the author's stuff? (As happens with most Readers Digest books) 
Don't forget the value of reading the back of cereal boxes at breakfast. Some good stuff there.
And, don't be afraid to give up on something a third of the way in if you are sure it stinks. Once in a blue moon you might miss out on something really good in the last two thirds, but seldom in my experience. 
(And remember, Jesus never wrote a word)

If he never wrote a word, How come I see his name written on all those overpasses in  LA. You think somebody else, signed is name to that art?

[GPnative]

I thought this was an interesting read. 


FANTASYLAND
How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
by Kurt Andersen


KIRKUS REVIEW

When did Americans come to shun reality? When did the American experiment become a congeries of solipsisms?
“As I pass by fish in barrels,” writes Studio 360 host Andersen (True Believers, 2012, etc.) at the outset of this entertaining tour of American irreality, “I will often shoot them.” Indeed he does, but then, as writers as various as H.L. Mencken and Christopher Hitchens long ago discovered, American society offers endless targets. Andersen finds a climacteric in Karl Rove’s pronouncement, a dozen years ago, that those people who live in “the reality-based community” need to understand that “that’s not the way the world really works anymore.” True enough: Andersen closes with the rise of Trump-ism and its “critical mass of fantasy and lies” that is in danger of becoming “something much worse than nasty, oafish, reality-show pseudoconservatism.” It’s not just the Trumpies who are ruining things for everyone; by the author’s account, the nice liberals who refuse to vaccinate their children are as much a part of the problem as those who flock to creation museums and megachurches. All are waystations of Andersen’s “Fantasyland,” an assemblage not just of scattered false beliefs, but whole lifestyles cobbled from them, which lands us in the 1960s and its ethos: “Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative.” It’s not, but that’s where we are today, at least by Andersen’s account, though he hastens to add that approving nods to political correctness are not necessarily the same thing as endorsing perniciousness. Throughout, the author names names—Dr. Oz, for one, won’t be happy, and neither will Oprah—and takes no prisoners, offering incitement for the rest of us to do the same. “We need to become less squishy,” Andersen writes, and instead gird up for some reality-based arguments against the “dangerously untrue and unreal.”
A spirited, often entertaining rant against things as they are.


Yes TVGuy, there is one less than glowing review: Saved you the trouble and posted it here

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/books...wire.html/

Well, okay then...
Anyone other than Scrapper reading "50 Shades of Grey"? 

I read Readers Digest on the can, does that count?

Damn right it counts! Reading is reading. 
But, wonder why you want someone editing the author's stuff? (As happens with most Readers Digest books) 
Don't forget the value of reading the back of cereal boxes at breakfast. Some good stuff there.
And, don't be afraid to give up on something a third of the way in if you are sure it stinks. Once in a blue moon you might miss out on something really good in the last two thirds, but seldom in my experience. 
(And remember, Jesus never wrote a word)

I like the variety of articles and humor, and I'm talking the magazine not the condensed books. I have an honest to goodness print subscription.

Trying to think if I ever quit reading a book I started.....I don't think so.

My one major disappointment is I was 2 books from completing the John Jakes bastard series ( kent family chronicles) excellent excellent books, then our first child was born and reading took a major back seat and before I knew it a year had gone by and there was no way I could pick up where I left off and remember the details and I have since not committed to reread the previous 6, but some day I will complete that damn series, it actually bothers me I didn't finish it. 

Knowing you are a prolific reader, I will give you a book suggestion, Giants in the Earth by Rolvaag, I read it decades ago and can still quote the final sentence to this day. I'm short on its details with the passage of time, it was a long ass book and literally decades since i read it, but i know I liked it and it made an impression and I think you like historical perspective pieces so what the hell, that's my recommend.

[Wonky3]

I thought this was an interesting read. 


FANTASYLAND
How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
by Kurt Andersen


KIRKUS REVIEW

When did Americans come to shun reality? When did the American experiment become a congeries of solipsisms?
“As I pass by fish in barrels,” writes Studio 360 host Andersen (True Believers, 2012, etc.) at the outset of this entertaining tour of American irreality, “I will often shoot them.” Indeed he does, but then, as writers as various as H.L. Mencken and Christopher Hitchens long ago discovered, American society offers endless targets. Andersen finds a climacteric in Karl Rove’s pronouncement, a dozen years ago, that those people who live in “the reality-based community” need to understand that “that’s not the way the world really works anymore.” True enough: Andersen closes with the rise of Trump-ism and its “critical mass of fantasy and lies” that is in danger of becoming “something much worse than nasty, oafish, reality-show pseudoconservatism.” It’s not just the Trumpies who are ruining things for everyone; by the author’s account, the nice liberals who refuse to vaccinate their children are as much a part of the problem as those who flock to creation museums and megachurches. All are waystations of Andersen’s “Fantasyland,” an assemblage not just of scattered false beliefs, but whole lifestyles cobbled from them, which lands us in the 1960s and its ethos: “Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative.” It’s not, but that’s where we are today, at least by Andersen’s account, though he hastens to add that approving nods to political correctness are not necessarily the same thing as endorsing perniciousness. Throughout, the author names names—Dr. Oz, for one, won’t be happy, and neither will Oprah—and takes no prisoners, offering incitement for the rest of us to do the same. “We need to become less squishy,” Andersen writes, and instead gird up for some reality-based arguments against the “dangerously untrue and unreal.”
A spirited, often entertaining rant against things as they are.


Yes TVGuy, there is one less than glowing review: Saved you the trouble and posted it here

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/books...wire.html/

Well, okay then...
Anyone other than Scrapper reading "50 Shades of Grey"? 

I read Readers Digest on the can, does that count?

Damn right it counts! Reading is reading. 
But, wonder why you want someone editing the author's stuff? (As happens with most Readers Digest books) 
Don't forget the value of reading the back of cereal boxes at breakfast. Some good stuff there.
And, don't be afraid to give up on something a third of the way in if you are sure it stinks. Once in a blue moon you might miss out on something really good in the last two thirds, but seldom in my experience. 
(And remember, Jesus never wrote a word)

I like the variety of articles and humor, and I'm talking the magazine not the condensed books. I have an honest to goodness print subscription.

Trying to think if I ever quit reading a book I started.....I don't think so.

My one major disappointment is I was 2 books from completing the John Jakes bastard series ( kent family chronicles) excellent excellent books, then our first child was born and reading took a major back seat and before I knew it a year had gone by and there was no way I could pick up where I left off and remember the details and I have since not committed to reread the previous 6, but some day I will complete that damn series, it actually bothers me I didn't finish it. 

Knowing you are a prolific reader, I will give you a book suggestion, Giants in the Earth by Rolvaag, I read it decades ago and can still quote the final sentence to this day. I'm short on its details with the passage of time, it was a long ass book and literally decades since i read it, but i know I liked it and it made an impression and I think you like historical perspective pieces so what the hell, that's my recommend.

Thanks. Just Googled it and it looks like a good read. The review says it's part of a trilogy. I like history of our west in the early days, so may give it a look. 
PS: For some reason I never got into the John Jakes series. Mrs. Wonky REALLY liked them and encouraged me to start..somehow just never got around to it. (May have been reading porn during that period.   )

[GPnative]

Well, okay then...
Anyone other than Scrapper reading "50 Shades of Grey"? 

I read Readers Digest on the can, does that count?

Damn right it counts! Reading is reading. 
But, wonder why you want someone editing the author's stuff? (As happens with most Readers Digest books) 
Don't forget the value of reading the back of cereal boxes at breakfast. Some good stuff there.
And, don't be afraid to give up on something a third of the way in if you are sure it stinks. Once in a blue moon you might miss out on something really good in the last two thirds, but seldom in my experience. 
(And remember, Jesus never wrote a word)

I like the variety of articles and humor, and I'm talking the magazine not the condensed books. I have an honest to goodness print subscription.

Trying to think if I ever quit reading a book I started.....I don't think so.

My one major disappointment is I was 2 books from completing the John Jakes bastard series ( kent family chronicles) excellent excellent books, then our first child was born and reading took a major back seat and before I knew it a year had gone by and there was no way I could pick up where I left off and remember the details and I have since not committed to reread the previous 6, but some day I will complete that damn series, it actually bothers me I didn't finish it. 

Knowing you are a prolific reader, I will give you a book suggestion, Giants in the Earth by Rolvaag, I read it decades ago and can still quote the final sentence to this day. I'm short on its details with the passage of time, it was a long ass book and literally decades since i read it, but i know I liked it and it made an impression and I think you like historical perspective pieces so what the hell, that's my recommend.

Thanks. Just Googled it and it looks like a good read. The review says it's part of a trilogy. I like history of our west in the early days, so may give it a look. 
PS: For some reason I never got into the John Jakes series. Mrs. Wonky REALLY liked them and encouraged me to start..somehow just never got around to it. (May have been reading porn during that period.   )

Yes, I knew it was part of a trilogy, at the time long before the internet, it was probably the only copy at the library. Actually, I think it was borrowed from a teacher. Either way, i didn't have the other 2 then, but I think #1 can stand on it's own.