OOh. Thanks all.

Does "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" count?

Oh god. I used that in a class last semester, and it took a LONG time for anyone to laugh.

Hi Meara. The song book has been printed. When the nastys with their crooked crosses come to town tomorrow they will be serenaded with the following eclectic collection:

Faithless – Mass Destruction
BALLAD FOR AMERICANS
Springtime for Hitler from Mel Brooks “The Producers”
Bob Marley -WAR
Elvis Costello – What’s so Funny About Peace Love and Understanding
Bob Marley – Get Up! Stand Up!
Kris Kristofersons Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down
Wild American
Generation Genocide
Your Racist Friend
Kazoo band rendition of theme from Hogan's heros
Nazi Punks Fuck Off

We suspect they won't last through the whole thing.

Hello. I don't usually hang out here, but I was wondering if anyone had read "Explorers of the New Century"? (It's the latest book by Magnus Mills.) Here's the Salon review.

It's a quick read. If you're going to read it, do not get spoiled. Slightly more than halfway through, stuff is revealed that radically changes one's view of what's going on....

A fun, if disturbing, read.

George RR Martin gets his 17th Hugo Nomination for A Feast for Crows.

Anybody know of any good books on the history of the Cold War? I'm specifically looking for stuff about the very beginning of it, like how we got from WWII to the Cold War, and the Rosenbergs and other stuff around that period, but I'm also interested in a more general history. (I just read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feinman and Doctorow's Book of Daniel back-to-back, and my brain is kind of stuck in that "but how did we get from there to there?" space now.)

Now that you mention it, that does sound interesting.

Just off the top of my head... I think the Berlin Airlift is considered the start of the Cold War, or at least a major escalation. That was around 1948? Then the Korean war (1950-'53) resulted in big increases in US defense spending. The Soviet Union detonating their first atomic bomb was a major shock to the US too. (That was somewhere around 1949-'51, IIRC.)

Communists taking over China (1948?) was also (I think) part of the rise of the cold war mentality. US politicians played the "blame game" in trying to assign American responsibiltiy for "who lost China."

eta: Actually, US and British mistrust of the Soviet Union was increasing even before the end of WW-II, when the Soviet Union was our ally.

Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech was in 1945, IIRC.

Hey Erika!

There's an anthology coming out next month called "Baltimore Noir" and David Simon has a story in it. It's from Akashic Books, the same people who did "DC Noir" and "Brooklyn Noir". Thought you might be interested.