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The Help

"The Help," by Kathryn Stockett, is one of the best books I have listened to.

Though set in Jackson, Mississippi from 1962 to 1964, this novel relevant today to the racist ideals (though far more institutionalized) that this nation carries so dearly in the hearts of its people.

Here are the back noes from the sound recording:

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy until Skeeter has a ring on her finger.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk.

The project is a book with the stories of black maids in the Jackson, Mississippi. At first this didn't seem too risky to me. But then, as one is refreshed in the memories of the racism at that time (somewhat different than the racism of this time), people could lose livlihoods, be tortured, lynched or just flat out murdered for being a black person talking about the trouble white folk gave them.

Considering the new racism being promoted by the likes of Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, and the likes of the Tea Baggers and so many other white folk terrified of losing the privileged gained by suppressing and oppressing poor white folk, blacks, indians, and whatever other races they disapproved of at the time, just adds to the intensity and flavor of this novel.

[side note: I think the term "Tea Bagger" is one of the funniest political group names I have ever heard. Having seen the movie, "Pecker," and seeing that Tea Bagging as referred to in that movie, was when a male stripper bounced his testicals off the head of someone giving them a tip to do so. So, every time I hear the term, "Tea Bagger," I think of those strippes bouncing their nuts off the heads of other men.]

The new racism, instead of white folk being openly proud of their oppression of others and their privileges gained from such actions, they attack usually black people for being racist. Examples are what has happened with Shirley Sherrod thanks to the racist actions of Andrew Breitbart and Fox News, and with the Black Panther Part for Self-Defense thanks to the Tea Baggers (bouncy ballsacks), the NAACP thanks to the Tea Baggers (hee hee). Breitbart, Fox News, and the Tea Baggers (omg), claim Shirley Sherrod, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and the NAACP practice racism against white folk. However, these white folk (Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, and the Tea Baggers [so funny]) never care about racism unless it is "perceived" racism against white folk from blacks or other races. Then they claim reverse racism, but don't really care about racism at all in the terms of how it effects other races. Now if that isn't racist, what is?

Kathryn Stockett did a fantastic job in writing "The Help", one of the best novels I have listened to. You need to read or listen to this book. It is so relevant to the times as well as those times. If you get the sound copy, it is read by Octavia Spencer, Bahni Turpin, and Jenna Lamia. These three women did a FANTASTIC job of portraying this story.

Go get a copy, now.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

I had always had "War and Peace," by Leo Tolstoy, as a to read book in the back of my mind. I have never been too sure about this book as it did not seem all that interesting to me from what I've heard. So, I bought a copy a while ago, but have not had a chance to read it. So, I decided to see if they had it on CD at the library, and unabridged version, as I didn't want the cliff notes. And whaddya know, their is an unabridged reading of the book, in two parts. Part 1 is 25 discs for 30 hours and 20 minutes. Part 2 is 26 CD's for a total of 31 hours and 25 minutes. It is read very well by Neville Jason. As stated in previous posts, my work allows for many opportunities in listening to such works.

The book is amazing in its descriptive qualities considering it is a historical novel and Leo himself was born in 1828, and the "War and Peace" concerns the time of 1805 to 1812, during the Napoleonic wars in Russia.

At first I found the book rather boring, seeming more like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous instead of an important novel about war. However, as it reached the first battles of Austerlitz, the fuller the characters took in ones minds.

Tolstoy has a descriptive quality that makes it feel like he was there. Like he was dreaming the reality and sharing it with the world. He has a way of molding the characters as a whole. They are three-dimensional and not flat. Some of the characters I hated, some I loved, and often, they were the same characters. My favorite was Pierre Basuhoff (sp? as I did not actually read, but listened to the book) . He starts out as a partying youth who participates in drunken festivities such as tying a policeman to a bear. A fella like that can't be all bad.

The war descriptions are amazing. They have qualities in only stories that I've been told by vets and works I've read by boy soldiers. He describes well the effects war has on the people during times of relative peace, i.e. not at war, as well.

All in all, although at times boring, the novel, "War and Peace," is well worth the read. I feel like I got something out of it.

The above photograph of Leo Tolstoy was taken in 1908 and is an actual color photograph. In other words, it is not Turnerized, but an actual color photograph by a pioneer in color photography, Prokudin-Gorskii.

I've also read a little that Tolstoy was quite the peace activist especially later in life. I won't hold that against him, however.

ADDENDUM

I would like to point out something that interested me about the wars in this book compared to the wars of today.

In the wars between Russia and France, the teams were rather close to equal. The fighting was nasty, bloody, up close and personal. The generals and the rest of the rank fought beside the grunts, as it were. The rich fought just as hard as the grunts, the rich were just as cowardly as the grunts. They were all side by side in the nastiness that is known as war.

Observers were common. You could ride out onto the field and watch war. The people fighting it would not support you, like feed you like they would the fighters. But you could watch, stand under fire, maybe get killed, as long as you stayed out of the way.

Not so today. You would never see the likes of that POS Tony Hayward, fighting beside the grunts who Obomber and Killary want to start slaughtering Iranians with and already have and are slaughtering Iraqi's and Afghani's. You won't see the generals and fighting side by side with their men.

Nor are the sides close to even. The U.S. is overwhelming in its Blitzkrieg of military might and technology. Yet, oddly, unlike in "War and Peace," there are no clear winners in these illegal and genocidal wars started by mass murderer George Bush and perpetuated by mass murderer Barack Obama, aka Obomber. With no where near the military might, the Iraqi's and Afghani's are still fighting back.

I'm just sayin'.

Pretties

Define Civilized

Spring/Summer is Finally Here

Lilikoi

Shusli and I had lunch today at Lilikoi restaurant at 1324 N Killingsworth St., Portland, OR 97217-4540 (503) 477-5585. They are on Killingsworth near I-5.

They serve mostly noodles and pulled pork sandwiches on homemade Hawaiian sweet bread. The wife and co-owner said she is from Southeast Asia and her husband is from Hawaii. They decided to open a little restaurant that served a unique combination of their home foods. It is GREAT!, inexpensive, and a rather small hole-in-the-wall kind of place.

They are open Wednesday thru Sunday 11am to 8pm.

ENJOY!

PDX

Tony Hayward Gets His Life Back

I read that at the G20 meeting, Obomber and prime minister of England, David Cameron, decided that BP is too big to fail. You all know what that means, right? That means that the U.S., British, and Canadian citizens will be paying Tony Haward for the destruction that little fucking bastard has caused in the gulf. That means that the people whose lives were destroyed because of that POS will be paying that little bastard for destroying their livlihoods. That means we will be paying for the deaths of all those animals and turning the Gulf into a dead zone. You and me. All of us fools who allow POS's such as Tony to purchase our governments and our alleged leaders, such as the two a-holes shown above. Tony Hayward gets his life back. F**K the rest of us! We all get to pay for it. Thanks, Barack and David, for fucking the little people.

FDA

I went to my favorite tobacco shop on Wednesday to pick up some of my favorite tobacco. Imagine my surprise when I heard they don't make that blend anymore. I asked why. It is because the FDA, assholes and morons that they are, corporate whores that they are, decided in their great capacity to be completely stupid, that one can no longer smoke flavored cigarette tobacco. It is not that they care for our health. I'm not sure why. Steve Books, the blender for Rich's, and one of only a handful of actual tobacco blenders left in this nation, told me several months ago that the FDA was after him. Considering what corporate whores the Food and Drug Administration is, I assume that RJ Reynolds decided they want less competition and got their employees in the FDA to do some dirty work for them.

So I went in search of kombuche. My favorite is the Synergy brand. Oddly, I couldn't find it in two different stores that I went to. So, I asked. The FDA had all Synergy brand kombuche removed from the shelves to test if they are over 0.5% alcohol. Yes, the FDA is looking out for the corporations they whore to, and no doubt, this has something to do with the alcohol industry wanting to get in on some of the action.

Oddly, the FDA does not go after factory farms. I believe, if I remember correctly, they even wanted to irradiate our food. So I'm sure that the above two things have something to do with corporations wanting to cut in on others actions and are using the FDA as their tool.