Scary But Salient Point in Chuck Thompson's "Better Off Without 'Em":

[Brigid]

This book is a hilarious but solid polemic about the North and the South parting ways because for various cultural, historical, and political reasons they will never get along. I rarely re-read a book (too many others to read), but this one is worth it. I will be skipping the upcoming chapter on college football (it bores me), but it's a great read. I'd forgotten just how funny it is. I may not be quite as ready to write off the South as a hopeless case as Thompson is, but at least he makes a convincing argument. Here's one chilling paragraph from a great screed about Southern militarism that I can't believe I missed the first time:

Here's a secret Intel bulletin for y'all who've never left Yoknapatawpha County and imagine the United States is constantly on the precipice of enemy invasion -- the only way this country is ever going to surrender its liberty to a foreign power is if it keeps electing corrupt officials who auction it away to multinational corporations and overseas government interests in exactly the fashion that southern star chambers have been doing to their own people throughout their entire dyspeptic history.

Chew on that one for a while.

[The Magistrate]

1. Cold Truth, Ma'am

I shall have to get a copy of that....

[Nay]

2. I, like you, read the book twice -- once straight through, and then I went back to page 1

and went straight back through it a second time. A funny and pointed book that everyone should read. I also skipped the football part!