>> ^Smugglarn:

I guess Salman Rushdie wasn't invited. Tools




I was thinking that when it went out. Maybe everyone forgot? (Except Salman of course..)

I guess Salman Rushdie wasn't invited. Tools

In reply to this comment by jpg1023:
In reply to this comment by rougy:
The King's English is sometimes over-rated.

you realize he is australian. last time i checked that is not the "king's" english

It's a figure of speech. I was implying that just because he wasn't as eloquent or as precise with his words as Hitchens or Rushdie, that his point was no less valid.

It would be like me discounting your sentence above because it wasn't capitalized or punctuated according to the rules.

I wanted to hear Rushdie talk, but all those asshats kept talking over him. Fuckers.

He didn't do too bad.

I think the consensus of most of the discussion was balanced against him, and had he someone more sympathetic to his point of view, say Garafalo or Whoopie Goldberg, he would have done better.

Yes, Rushdie is a formidable brain. Maher tried to provide balance. Hitch was pretty much a prick and clearly drunk off his ass, and there were several points he made that were either dubiously absent of relative information, or clearly biased and condescending.

Orders were given to our US troops to let Osama bin Laden escape. Hitch knows that.

>> ^cybrbeast:
I hope Mos Def won't be visiting the show again. He mostly detracts from the conversation and seems so self important as to use most of the speaking time.


Agreed, when you're at the table with Rushdie and Hitchens, just sit back and listen unless you've got at least half their intellect and experience. From what was shown here, Mos Def has neither. That's not an insult either, there aren't many people on the planet who meet that bar.

Agreed, I would have much rather watched Rushdie and Hitchens debate drug policy. How did nukes get on the table again? I'd have to re-watch the video to see how Mos Def segway'ed onto that tangent.

it's odd to hear someone of Rushdie's intelligence argue against legalization.

>> ^rougy:
>> ^gwiz665:
^That's largely an American problem.

Well, that's comforting to know.
Where is it different?

In Europe where the income for the middle class adjusted for inflation has actually grown since the 80s and hasn't remained mostly stagnant like in America. Hooray for Unions. I know of no acquaintance who is heavily in debt, unless you count mortgages, but those debts shrink instead of grow.

>> ^gwiz665:
^That's largely an American problem.


Well, that's comforting to know.

Where is it different?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Bill Maher, real time, overtime, bin laden' to 'Bill Maher, real time, overtime, bin laden, salman rushdie' - edited by alien_concept

The point that Rushdie misses at the end of this video is that most people can no longer afford to live within their means.

Most people have no choice but to go into debt in order to maintain even the most humble and unambitious lifestyle.

Most people spend their entire lives in debt because within this system of ours there is simply no realistic alternative.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Maher, def, hitchens, rushdie, iran, nukes, obama' to 'Maher, mos def, hitchens, rushdie, iran, nukes, obama' - edited by xxovercastxx

Mrs. Salman Rushdie?!! I have to get me a fatwa!

-Le Petit Prince by de Saint-Exupéry, because it permanently shaped the way I look at (and interact in) any and all attachments.
-Vinnie the Pooh, because in it's simplicity it provided unique and oh-so-valuable insights on social norms and the psychology of friendship.
-The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, because it gave me the final nudge to become a true bookworm. I like to boast - at age 5 or 6, I read it cover-to-cover in about 9 hours (refused lunch and dinner until I'd finished ).
-The Catcher in the Rye - I guess the most straightforward and requires no explanation.
-A Hero of our Time by Lermontov, because it presented me with a fatalist byronic hero and gave me a clear idea of someone I was very much like and I DID NOT want to become.

and last but definitely not least:
-The Lord of the Rings to which I practically exclusively owe my English skills - I started Book 1 in 1999, I think, with the thickest available dictionary in hand, which honestly, at first had to utilize for practically every sentence but finished Book 6 (not a month later) having clearly surpassed my English teacher in vocabulary and speech fluency.

It has happened before and it will happen again (I mean this kind of Sift Talk), so I guess it was just a matter of time before I participated.

I only stated the couple of books that actually altered my life somewhat (I'm saying this because I always somehow got the impression other people made their lists based on how artsy/fancy their titles sounded, which I really hope isn't true in most cases among Sifters).
Anyway, I guess it's also worth saying that I read every one of these before the age of 15, which helps explain why and how they have influenced my life to some extent.

It's funny though - by the time I was 16 I'd also read and re-read Hesse, Huxley, Orwell, Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, García Márquez, Rand, Joyce, Vonnegut, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Burgess, Hemingway, Rushdie and other "classics", but most some of these managed was to entertain me mildly (Vonnegut, Hesse, Huxley, Joyce - yes, I really did enjoy reading Ulysses), while I actually hated having to finish some of them (Orwell, Rand, Burgess).

P.S. Oh and I think I speak for us all when I say - Sagemind - WHAT. THE. F*CK??

>> ^Sagemind:
I have to give two lists!

FICTION:
Clive Barker - Imagica
David Farland - Runelords
Dan Millman - Way of the the Peaceful Warrior
Frank Hurbert - Dune
John Fowles - The Magus
Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
L Ron Hubbard - Battlefield Earth
Jack L Chalker - Lilith: A snake in the grass
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel’s Dart
Jack Kerouac - On the Road