http://booksneverread-rays.blogspot.com/
Introduction
I am most fearful that today’s American culture will make the book obsolete. The electronic culture of text messaging, TV, the Internet, video games, DVD movies. Ipods, talk radio, telephones that take pictures, movies and provide snippets of TV shows etc. is taking thought and ideas out of daily life. Reading books requires sustained thought, patience, reflection, visualizing, the ability to apply abstract ideas. American culture today has little time for reading and, therefore, for thinking. American electronic culture is killing the American spirit, and may be beyond resurrection.
In hopes that spiritually and intellectually stimulating books will once again return to our culture, I am beginning a blog that summarizes my favorite books, books with ideas that have enriched my understanding of life.
Perhaps the reader who stumbles on this blog sometime in the bookless future will sense the importance again of ideas that enrich one’s understanding of the world. Ideas that come mainly from books.
Raymond Stopper
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years. Carl Sandburg. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc. 1926.
Why read it? A vivid re-creation of the youth and the times of Abraham Lincoln’s growing up. Many anecdotes.
A Sample of Ideas: Kentucky father, one son, a Confederate, dead; the other son, in Union blue, dead; says, God knows which was right. We began this nation saying all men are equal except Negroes. Lincoln: decency, honest dealing, plain talk and funny stories. Lincoln’s like us, a struggler. Lincoln smiles and remains impenetrable. Combined the spirit of authority and freedom. The things I want to know are in books. Books told Abe more than they told other people. His silence was immense. Read people as keenly as books. Walked 30 miles to the courthouse to see how lawyers speak, argue and act.
So depressed he never carried a knife. I won’t marry anyone who is blockheaded enough to marry me. Determine whether an issue has more of evil or good in it. Everything is an inseparable compound of good and evil. In all ages, some have labored and some have enjoyed the fruits of that labor, without laboring themselves. Don’t alter the Constitution; will bring on more changes. Sense of history came from books, not newspapers. Read the Bible from cover to cover. Farmer: which horse do you like best? Can’t tell: one kicks the other bites; can’t tell which is worst.
Sensed that he would meet some terrible end. I am slow to learn and slow to forget. Why don’t the people who think slavery is a good thing become slaves themselves? If color of skin justifies slavery, then you are the slave of the first person you meet who is fairer-skinned than you. Intellectually superior? Then you are the slave to the first person who is intellectually superior to you. Government: do for the people what they can’t do themselves. Slaves are, legally, not persons but things. Dred Scott Decision: a slave is property and can be taken from one state to another.
This government cannot endure permanently as half-slave and half-free. After losing to Douglas: like a little boy who stubbed his toe, hurt too bad to laugh and too big to cry. To be a slave or a master is no democracy. John Brown: “Had I taken up arms on behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent…every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.” No man can be property. Faith that right makes might. Lincoln was buffoon, monster, abortion, idiot; prayed he would be flogged, burned, hanged, tortured. Revolutions easier started than controlled; men who start them seldom end them.
Quote: “Lincoln had an ironic sense of humor. Challenged to a duel and given a choice of weapons, Lincoln said, ‘Cow dung at five paces.’ ”
I am most fearful that today’s American culture will make the book obsolete. The electronic culture of text messaging, TV, the Internet, video games, DVD movies. Ipods, talk radio, telephones that take pictures, movies and provide snippets of TV shows etc. is taking thought and ideas out of daily life. Reading books requires sustained thought, patience, reflection, visualizing, the ability to apply abstract ideas. American culture today has little time for reading and, therefore, for thinking. American electronic culture is killing the American spirit, and may be beyond resurrection.
In hopes that spiritually and intellectually stimulating books will once again return to our culture, I am beginning a blog that summarizes my favorite books, books with ideas that have enriched my understanding of life.
Perhaps the reader who stumbles on this blog sometime in the bookless future will sense the importance again of ideas that enrich one’s understanding of the world. Ideas that come mainly from books.
Raymond Stopper
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years. Carl Sandburg. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc. 1926.
Why read it? A vivid re-creation of the youth and the times of Abraham Lincoln’s growing up. Many anecdotes.
A Sample of Ideas: Kentucky father, one son, a Confederate, dead; the other son, in Union blue, dead; says, God knows which was right. We began this nation saying all men are equal except Negroes. Lincoln: decency, honest dealing, plain talk and funny stories. Lincoln’s like us, a struggler. Lincoln smiles and remains impenetrable. Combined the spirit of authority and freedom. The things I want to know are in books. Books told Abe more than they told other people. His silence was immense. Read people as keenly as books. Walked 30 miles to the courthouse to see how lawyers speak, argue and act.
So depressed he never carried a knife. I won’t marry anyone who is blockheaded enough to marry me. Determine whether an issue has more of evil or good in it. Everything is an inseparable compound of good and evil. In all ages, some have labored and some have enjoyed the fruits of that labor, without laboring themselves. Don’t alter the Constitution; will bring on more changes. Sense of history came from books, not newspapers. Read the Bible from cover to cover. Farmer: which horse do you like best? Can’t tell: one kicks the other bites; can’t tell which is worst.
Sensed that he would meet some terrible end. I am slow to learn and slow to forget. Why don’t the people who think slavery is a good thing become slaves themselves? If color of skin justifies slavery, then you are the slave of the first person you meet who is fairer-skinned than you. Intellectually superior? Then you are the slave to the first person who is intellectually superior to you. Government: do for the people what they can’t do themselves. Slaves are, legally, not persons but things. Dred Scott Decision: a slave is property and can be taken from one state to another.
This government cannot endure permanently as half-slave and half-free. After losing to Douglas: like a little boy who stubbed his toe, hurt too bad to laugh and too big to cry. To be a slave or a master is no democracy. John Brown: “Had I taken up arms on behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent…every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.” No man can be property. Faith that right makes might. Lincoln was buffoon, monster, abortion, idiot; prayed he would be flogged, burned, hanged, tortured. Revolutions easier started than controlled; men who start them seldom end them.
Quote: “Lincoln had an ironic sense of humor. Challenged to a duel and given a choice of weapons, Lincoln said, ‘Cow dung at five paces.’ ”
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