We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
In his intro, he asks "In what section of the bookstore or library should this book be placed? Science? Mathematics? Logic? Linguistics? Computer Science? Artificial Intelligence? Psychology? Sociology? Cognitive Science?"
18:15 "If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.
18:16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
18:17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
18:18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
18:19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.
18:20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."
Well, specifically about those with African ancestry?
I think it's the November election. Trump's approval with African-Americans keeps rising, and that could be death for Democrats. One might imagine that the US is becoming more anti-black by the day. Wrong.
(I hate that term, "educated at...". No, that doesn't happen. Wherever in life, one educates oneself - or doesn't. Nothing against Helprin - remarkable guy, and a humble one.)
I feel Soldier of the Great War is his magnum opus, but readers may differ. If you start with him, you will want to read all of them.
"The purpose of a college education is to teach you how to think". Regardless of your current opinions, this book is going to make you think. If you are not afraid to check your values and judgements, read the book.
P.xi "Historians who think it the highest calling of their profession to resurrect the 'daily life of ordinary people' can find little evidence in the daily life of ordinary Germans of the overwhelming fact of life-and of death-for millions of Jews; those who look for the 'long-term' processes and impersonal 'structures' in history tend to explain this 'short-term event' in such a way as to explain it away; and those seeking to 'deconstruct' the history of the Holocaust as they deconstruct all of history come perilously close to the 'revisionists' who deny the reality of the Holocaust. And so with philosophers and literary critics for whom there is no reality but only language, no philosophy but only a play of mind, no morality but only rhetoric and aesthetics."
P.6 "The beasts of modernism have mutated into the beasts of postmodernism-relativism into nihilism, amorality into immorality, irrationality into insanity, sexual deviancy into polymorphous perversity. And since then, generations of intelligent students under the guidance of their enlightened professors have looked into the abyss, have contemplated those beasts, and have said, 'How interesting how exciting.' Today, students in some of the most distinguished departments of literature are all too often reading books about how to read books. Literary theory has replaced literature itself as the fashionable subject of study. Structuralism and deconstruction, gender theory and the new historicism, reader-response and speech-act theory-these are more hotly debated than the content and style of particular novels or poems."
P.17 "This is the intention behind some of the most fashionable schools of history: that which explains everything in terms of race, class, and gender; that which focuses entirely upon the daily lives of ordinary people; that which structuralizes history, displacing individuals, events, and ideas by impersonal structures, forces, and institutions. The effect in each case is to mute the drama of history, to void it of moral content, to mitigate evil and belittle greatness. Looking into the most fearsome abysses of modern times, these historians see not beasts but faceless bureaucrats, not corpses but statistics."
There is a whole chapter on Marx and his writings. Also a chapter on the significance in the long story of history of nationalism and post modernism.
Interesting collating lightning with church bells. Bruuuuce does Dylan's 1964 song, with the lyrics, at Am. Digest.
Yes, poetry from a NYC thunderstorm. I've been in those, in a doorway with a gal. What sort of musical soul could write such a soulful tune? Bruuuce does not do all of the verses, but the following thing is the real Dylan.
The Maggie's List of Basic Life Skills is from some old post that I can't find, but let's note managing watercraft today.
Here's an idea for the no-foreign travel era: Learn at the Helm at Chapman School. It's a 5-day hands-on course, based in Florida. They claim that, by the end of the course, you will be able to back a 40-ft boat into a slip. I can not do that.
Clearly, if you have been a Naval officer or a Coastie, attended the Maritime Academy, etc, this might be redundant. Studying Charles Chapman's classic Piloting and Seamanship is good, but it's not hands-on.
Bleak House is my most memorable Dickens novel, maybe partly because an underlying theme is an endless legal case. Yes, I am a Dickens fan.
From Amazon:
As the interminable case of 'Jarndyce and Jarndyce' grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, the destitute little crossing-sweeper. A savage, but often comic, indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dickens's most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums.
Saliva COVID-19 Test 
Who he is:
Refrigerator Pickles