Now Reading . . .

The last book I bought for my Nook is John Adams, the excellent biography by David McCullough. If you haven't read it, you should. I wanted to re-read it and could have saved my money by getting it from the library. However, it is inconvenient to schlep a seven hundred page book around with me for the odd moment when I have a few minutes to read, and I had a Barnes and Noble gift certificate, so the Nook purchase won.

Not only is this book a fascinating biography of a complicated man, it is also a glimpse into eighteenth century America. This is the kind of history we don't learn in high school or those American History survey courses we're forced to sit through in college. Looking through the lens of over two hundred years, we can't imagine the world or the people of the late eighteenth century, and we take for granted, and even scoff at, the political system they envisioned and for which they eventually shed blood. We Americans don't remember, if we ever knew, that what the founders conceived for their new nation was radical, an absolute departure from any way of life at the time. The United States of America was a great and noble experiment, one that the rest of the western world expected would fail.

I will avoid sounding like an enthusiastic history teacher, but will comment about Texas and being a native daughter. Though we are required to study American history in Texas, what is also required of us is the study of Texas history, much more interesting to us than the distant events of eighteenth, nineteenth, and the rapidly-being-forgotten twentieth century that took place north of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi River. While nothing stirs a Texan's blood like "Remember the Alamo!" and the story of our own struggle against an oppressive regime, we often forget that, since 1845, except for a few shameful years mired in the Confederacy, the legacy of the American Revolution is ours as well. We owe it to ourselves to turn from the immediacy of the American Southwest to gain a sense of what the founders achieved and bequeathed to us. I am fully committed to the indisputable fact that Texas is the greatest state; but I also believe that it is both a good and a negative thing that one of our state's catchphrases is that it is " . . . a whole other country."

And all this due to the inspiration of a beautifully-written book. What I really should have been is a librarian!

To close, a few words related to the biggest news of the week past. No, not the trial of the doctor who attended the late MJ, thank God, but the death of iconic businessman Steve Jobs. Yes, we've lost someone who changed the way we see the world and communicate with one another, and that is a sad thing. I find it ironic that only a few days ago, I became the owner of my first Apple product: an iPod  shuffle that I received as a birthday gift. Even I can be dragged into the Apple world, though I will never want to give up my PC.

 That's all, folks!