Howard Zinn, People's History of American Empire, Drop In Readership

The Jabberwocky.
I have been in a snarky mood today. I think I could slay dragons.

Not everything you read is something that you want to review. Although, I read Howard Zinn, A People's History of American Empire on the train this morning and enjoyed it, I have decided against reviewing it. I am also not going to put an Amazon button to sell it.

There are pieces of it which I am not sure which I can give justice to. I think part of reviewing is making decisions about what you want to give an opinion on. There is a lot which is covered in the book that is not part of mainstream history. It is more a history written from a radical left viewpoint. Some of it is frankly quite uncomfortable. This is the type of book which speaks for itself when you read it. I don't agree with some of the things being said. I am going to include the Youtube clip on the book which is a very nice summary.

I have a few problems with the darlings of the left. Howard Zinn is a close friend of Noam Chomsky who writes anarchist criticism of American power. I think I have a different frame of reference than Howard Zinn, more business oriented, I am more interested in clean technology, direct or e-democracy, green capitalism, economic quality of life, and employee owned enterprises. I am not a fan of pure socialism. There are some sections in the book which say how wonderful Eugene Debs is as well as idolize the wobblies. While they are interesting, they don't seem to be a good direction for this country to go.



____________________________________________________________________________________

There has been a steady decline in readership of my blog lately. I am not sure what is happening. It would be nice to see some feedback on why. First my readership declined with the changes in Entrecard. Now, I am getting some steady readers, but not a large amount of them. I have tried a variety of different traffic generators, but this does not seem to help.

I am also interested in hearing about which things you like to comment on. If you tell me what you like to comment on, I will do more of it.

I am in a snarky mood today. A bit sharp and biting. So I will include an appropriate poem to signal my mood. I feel like I could slay dragons today. Maybe I should read some science fiction.

Lewis Carroll-- Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two!
And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe

Afternoon Thoughts

I wrote the book review for Untapped while I was at the laundromat. Then I typed it up at home. While I was at the laundromat I had a cup of tea with lemon skipping the honey. Honey is still 25 cents a packet at the Korean deli next door to the laundromat. They told me it costs them 13 cents a packet to buy. When people ask for 2-4 packets of honey, they lose profits on tea. I had English Breakfast Tea this time. The packet was a Celestial Seasonings packet.

There is an odd little story about the company Celestial Seasonings. I heard that Celestial Seasonings was started by a hippy that used to wander around Berkeley California selling herbal teas out of a basket. It sounds like the kind of thing that would happen in Berkeley California. It is probably just an urban legend. You see their tea sold in supermarkets now. They have quite colorful packaging.

I took a walk this afternoon to the library. It was a chance to get some fresh air and stretch my legs. The library was pretty quiet today. I am typing this blog entry on a public library computer terminal not from home. I signed up for it for a half hour block of time.

I took a few minutes to look around the library. I found a graphic novel that looked kind of interesting. A People's History of American Empire by Howard Zinn. Howard Zinn is famous for writing A Peoples History of the United States a very popular leftist interpretation of American history. I have read other graphic novels that are historical. Because comic books are sequential in nature, they are an excellent medium for presenting history. My favorite example of this is Larry Groening's A Cartoon History of the Universe. Also cartoon panels are very easy to annotate. You can put a small box in the corner of a cartoon and put a citation in it. I rather like history presented in the graphic novel format.