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I am under the weather and am trying to get this weekend's SCR completed, but my brain is not at full power (83 IQ).

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“Just drink till the cold clears.

Or you die” - Heraclitus

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Nov 26, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

{In early this time!}

Looking forward to it. Thanks!

The USA was for decades prior--> For decades before the war, the USA was

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Nov 26, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

I hope you get better soon too...!

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Thanks! In bed and on a regimen of orange juice.

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Nov 26, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Journalistic writing 👍-- I can say this as an academic.

Okrent invented Fantasy Baseball and the Walks and Hits per inning pitched (WHIP) statistic

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Now dats some whiteness I can relate to...

here in NY we need background checks to buy ammo, weapons permits and CCW (concealed carry) notwithstanding.

BUT we also can’t buy mixers or Margherita Salt in the liquor store. We have to go to the grocery store for that...

... or beer.

Vodka? EverClear (grain alcohol 180 proof) ? Whiskey? Tequila ? Liquor store.

Beer or mixers including soda?

Grocery store.

Weed? Different stores...

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To be fair in most of Ky until very recently you couldn’t buy liquor on Sundays (God’s day) and in some counties you couldn’t buy liquor at all. Of course plenty of people still know where to buy moonshine, especially once you get of the urban areas.

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Nov 26, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Niccolo, a book you might want to consider for a future book club is: The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People by Walter Russell Mead.

https://www.amazon.com/Arc-Covenant-United-States-Israel/dp/0375414045/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1701028722&sr=8-1

Mead is a great writer and an innovative thinker. His book provides the historical background for the current war between Israel and Hamas. It focuses on the political and cultural sources of American support for Israel.

Among the things Mead points our are: in its early days Zionism had more support from American gentiles -- Christian Zionists -- than from Jews; Stalin, not Truman, played the vital role in supplying Israel with the weapons it needed to win its War of Independence in 1948; before 1967 the U.S. was cold and somewhat hostile towards Israel, being more interested in forming an alliance with Egypt. To quote Mead: "Israel did not grow strong because it had American support. It acquired American support because it had grown strong."

I hope you feel better. Looking forward to the SCR.

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1967 was a watershed moment for American Jews and for US support for Israel, you're right. I have a Jewish friend named Shlomo in Canada whose father was living in Dubrovnik until 1967. When Israel won the Six Day War, he and his brother decided to make Aliyah.

Feelin' better today, thanks.

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Interestingly they had Prohibition in Canada as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_Canada

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Nov 27, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition

Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, too along with a couple of other countries. The referendum to do so in Sweden failed by about ~35,000 votes/2%.

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Yeah, I only learned about this very, very recently. We weren't taught about it in school. Growing up in Southern Ontario, you are bombarded with info (or at least back then when I was a kid) about how much bootlegging took place between the Niagara-Buffalo and Detroit-Windsor borders during US Prohibition.

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founding
Nov 26, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Going to attempt to participate in this one since I’m between books at the moment.

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I highly recommend Lee Congdon's "George F. Kennan for Our Time" Recently published by Northern Illinois Press.

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Looking forward to this

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Nov 27, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

‘The most recent book we covered in this FbF Book Club was much more dry and academic.’

You astound me. Who’d’ve thought?

The one about sex was pants.

This one sounds okay.

You got flu? I had it for a month then got something else then etcetera on and on and will he never shut up okay I get ya.

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Niccolo: Chamomille (sp?) steam inhalation has always worked wonders for me. As hot as you can stand it; repeat every couple of hours. Buy chamomille by the kilo! Fa bene!

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Nov 27, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Another fun book on the topic of alcohol in America is “The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition” by William Rorabaugh.

Paul Johnson credits prohibition with being the catalyst for organized crime among Italians and other minorities.

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Prohibition made not just the Italian Mafia big, but also a lot of Irish and Jewish mobsters too. The Bronfmans of Canada (they ran the World Jewish Congress) got big via bootlegging to the USA during that era.

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