Breaking Dawn, briefly.

Ok, I know. I suck at blogging lately. I've got to come up with a way to fit it into my routine, because work is rarely slow enough for bloggery anymore.

As you might imagine, I don't remember as much about Breaking Dawn as I did after I read it. Its been a few months. This is why I must form a blogging schedule. Or start writing things down as I read. Or both.

I felt that Breaking Dawn was the least terrible of the four, just because it was a much quicker read because things actually happened aside from Bella thinking about stuff. Also we get Jacob as a narrator for a while and the break from Bella was much appreciated by me. While more interesting it still lacked action. Buildup with no payoff. I won't ruin the ending but I can tell you I was sort of excited, wondering what was going to happen and then....Meyer tricked me!! She made it seem like it wasn't going to be her same old boring stupid crap and then it IS her same old boring stupid crap.

I still don't understand why anyone likes these books. I found nothing about the story interesting. Its the lamest vampires ever meeting up with the lamest person in the world, Bella. They were frustratingly repetitive when it came to word usage. I'm very glad to finally be done with the series and am now embarking on my quest to figure out what people do like about it. There are quite a few folks I do not consider stupid, and yet they've told me that they like the books. I must pick their brains.

Coming up! Mini-review of Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen.

Currently reading...A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

Just finished...Wonder Woman by Jodi Picoult!

Book Review: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism

I went into the library with a specific book on economics in mind and, when it wasn't there, I decided to get this one instead. Several months later I can say with a heaving sigh of relief that I have finally finished this piece of trash. I didn't notice that it was a Main Selection of the Conservative Book Club when I checked it out. It is, thus far, the most infuriating book I have ever read (and I've read Ann Coulter).

The author's tone is extremely condescending and he proves all of his points with stupid examples that would almost never occur in real life. And he usually then goes on to completely contradict himself. For example, the male-female wage gap is "largely" a myth. Also, because of FMLA, women deserve smaller salaries because they are more likely to take time off which will cost the company money. I mean, where do you even begin with that kind of logic? Anyone with a brain sees why that's wrong, anyone who thinks its right is so far into Idiot-Land that there's really no point in arguing.

Dr. Murphy will have us believe that capitalism solves all of the world's problems but that pesky government thing just keeps getting in the way! He claims that slavery was a burden to slave-owners and that it cost more to have slave labor than to not. The government just made it too difficult to get rid of slaves. If not for government interference, he claims, capitalism would've ended slavery naturally.

Did you know that capitalism also solves the problem of racism? For instance, if there are two waitresses, a black experienced waitress and a less-experienced white waitress, the racist business owner will lose money with the less-experienced waitress, thus capitalism solved that one. Yes, this is actually the example given to prove that point. Also, affirmative action hurts minorities.

Contradictions loom around every corner. The "manufacturing slump" isn't really real... And its not caused by outsourcing. What? Also, out-sourcing is good. Why? Because the corporations that out-source save more money than is forfeited by its laid-off workers. This makes America riiiich, says my good friend Dr. Murphy. Well, no. This is why the top fifth is twelve times richer than the bottom fifth. Most economists don't care at all about the rich, whines Murphy; "as if rich Americans aren't a part of America".

This one may be the most mind-boggling-- seat belt laws cause more accidents because people drive more recklessly because they are wearing a seat belt and hit more pedestrians. I promise I am not making this up.

Okay, I've reached my limit. That's really more than you even needed to know. If you'd like a book to make you violently angry, I suggest picking up this one.

I shall leave you with a couple of steps in Dr. Murphy's 12 Step Plan for Understanding the Free Market:
10. Study other "spontaneous" social institutions, such as language and science, where no one is "in charge" and yet the outcome is quite orderly.
12. Go through the newspaper and discover how government meddling causes or exacerbates the conflict in virtually every story.

Yes. Do that. See what you find.

With heavy heart I shall return this book to the library instead of dropping it into the Ohio.

-1,000,000,000,000,000,000 outsourced stars from China/5

Book Review: The Greatest Stories Never Told

Because I am an annoying person who derives great pleasure from correcting others and spouting off "Did you know..."'s, I really enjoy reading books that offer up the real story. I did some looking around online and off to the library I went. The Greatest Stories Never Told is made up of "100 tales from history to astonish, bewilder and stupefy". It's author, Rick Beyer, has written quite an assortment of these types of books. I'd like to point out that it is presented by the History Channel. The Introduction assures us that all the facts have been checked and checked again.


This book is a snoozefest. There seems to be a reason these stories aren't told and its because they're ass-boring. Beyer's writing does absolutely nothing to spice them up, although its clear that he's trying. The book has three main types of "story". The first type is if-then situations. For example, did you know that Annie Oakley shot the ash off of a cigarette in Kaiser Wilhelm's mouth at his request before WWI? Well, she did. I just told you. Beyer claims that the gunshot "could have prevented the War to End All Wars". Yes, the idea is that if only Oakley had missed her target and hit the Kaiser that maybe WWI wouldn't have started. The same goes for WWII, according to Beyer. The car carrying the Archduke made a wrong turn and then he was assassinated. Imagine what a peaceful world it would've been if only Annie Oakley wasn't such a good shot or if Mapquest had been around for Ferdinand's driver! I mean, come on.

The second type of story is about the discovery of something. It starts with an "unlikely" story and then we're hit with the dramatic last sentence that is supposed to shock us. For example, a guy on a farm in Kansas in 1928 built his own telescope. "Even though he had only a high school diploma", he went to work for an observatory continuing the now-dead founder's search for Planet X. Skepticism abounded! He looked and did all this crazy work and stuff and then... "The farm boy from Kansas became the first American to discover a planet...which was named Pluto". What's with the ellipses? Dramatic pause? Because Pluto doesn't really deliver a big shocking punch. There are all sorts of stories of inventions originally made by someone else and places originally discovered by different explorers than we typically hear of, but I can't help but think the reason we don't hear these stories is because there's nothing sexy or interesting about them.

One of the few things I found interesting falls into the third type of story (which is maybe more of a sub-type of the second). These stories have the reasons behind things, like QWERTY. Apparently, QWERTY came to be because on old typewriters the letters would stick and if they were next to each other you had to wait for it to un-stick to use the other key. The QWERTY keyboard was born after letter order was studied and the letters were placed far away from the letters they are most often used next to. Yes, this is one of the only things I thought was interesting. And its really not very interesting.

Many things I'd heard of before, like the invention of Ivory soap (but that could be because I'm in Cincinnati) and the "war with Russia you never knew we had" (unless you've taken a college level history course). The only thing I was surprised to read was about the Scopes trial, which was apparently nothing but a publicity stunt for Dayton, Tennessee.

Beyer's efforts are apparent but the book falls short. No amount of ellipses or dramatic last sentences can spice up the dull tales he's unearthed. It almost becomes annoying to read such unspectacular facts written in such a sensational manner. I've come out of reading this book no smarter than when I started and my plans to read Beyer's more specific books are officially canceled. I was promised tales to "astonish, bewilder, and stupefy", but I think "bore, annoy, and waste your time" is more accurate.

I give this book a disappointing 1 out of 5 stars. Womp womp.

(I just noticed the "Staff Pick" sticker on the side... Yeesh! Good thing this came in from a different branch!)