Book Club Debacle

Neon lights, Nobel Prize
When a leader speaks, the reflection lies
You won't have to follow me
Only you can set me free
--Cult of Personality, Living Colour

How can you have any pudding
if you don't eat yer meat?
--Another Brick inThe Wall,
Pink Floyd
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Our Book Club went over like a lead zeppelin. How come no one showed up? We know we've got some erudite readers here, and we have got some flat out, hardcore military people (not that the twain shall never meet . . .), and you can't have figured out Counterinsurgency all on yer own, or you'd be dipping into the big bucks doing the government contractor - analyst gig. So that's not it . . .

We laid out the table cloth, set out the fancy Sea Salt & Vinegar chips AND the Cheezedoodles (for the work boot crowd). We gave you entre, intro and other book reports from which to crib. So what's the deal?

Help us out. Did you really wanna read Push, or The Help, or Three Cups of Tea? What was it that kept you away? 'Cause we'd really like to see if we can have a viable interaction over a third party's writing, to do that hard exploration from a hopefully disinterested vantage point.

See, the thing is, Ranger's pretty opinionated, and it becomes too easy in the blog world to gain a fanatical following of a cult of personality (ego's not a pretty thing, *sigh*.) An early posting to this blog elicited the comment, "Tell us what to think, Ranger"! But we cannot tell you what to think; we can only make an observation, and along with your input, hope to create some deeper understanding.

We would like to branch out and try new things. We are open to suggestions. Come as ANON, if you must, but tell us how we could hold a more successful Book Club.

Better eats? What?

Oddfellows

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet"
---Romeo and Juliet (II, ii)
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This is a trifling detail from a serious story in today's news, but it dovetails nicely with an esoteric thought, namely: is naming destiny?

From a story on a missing Tennessee woman, Karen Johnson Swift, who had recently filed for divorce, was this odd tidbit:

On Saturday, sheriff's deputies arrested a neighbor of the Swifts', 39-year-old John E. Hogshooter, on an outstanding felony warrant for animal cruelty. Hogshooter is accused of poisoning two dogs, including one that belonged to the Swifts.

"[Hogshooter's] arrest was based solely on the outstanding aggravated animal cruelty warrant and that is a felony," Sheriff Box told the Dyersburg State Gazette. "We basically waited on the lab results to come back from the TBI on the poisoning and they confirmed it."

Because Hogshooter allegedly poisoned Swift's dog and lives in close proximity to her residence, investigators impounded his vehicle and searched his home after she went missing. Authorities did not find any items connecting him to Swift's disappearance and do not consider him a suspect.

A friend facing a judgment in traffic court knew she was sunk when she came before Judge Doom. Dr. Graves is an AIDS advocate. Well, the list goes on and on. They are called aptronyms -- names that fit the possessor's occupation. I have come across so many in my life, I wish I'd kept a list as they are often bizarrely amusing.

Do you have any personal experience with naming-as-destiny? Have you ever had to contend with this phenomenon?

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REMINDER:

Join us @ brother blog MILPUB 15 November for the maiden voyage of the Military Book Club. It doesn't matter if you've never attended a book club before -- the is NOT YOUR MOTHER's book club!

Get your questions ready

Reading: David Kilcullen's, The Accidental Guerrilla