Where the blue begins

the one I always give as a gift

I have no standard gift book; books have to be chosen specifically for the recipient. Last Christmas I did give my great-neice and great-nephew both Sophie's World by Jostien Gaardner, along with other books chosen for each of them, but I think Sophie's World has a very good overview of western philosophy for people who have not really encountered it before. I added a note that they could skip the story parts if they wanted to, but the chapters on the philosophers would serve them well in other reading.

I did send Listen, Liberal; or what ever happened to the party of the people by Thomas Frank to two siblings, Bill's brother and one friend in the summer of 2016, well before the election. I ranted about it to the Democrats when I got calls from them.(Land lines are now scarce; if you have one you will get more political calls, and I am registered as a Democrat.) That book has everything I have complained about for years in Democratic policy and politics. The abandonment of unions and the working class, the extolling of the meritocracy and the upper middle class and support of policies that benefit them, the push of identity politics as the only way for Dems to win votes, the seeking of money from big businesses and writing policy to support them at the expense of workers, on and on and on.

Well, the Dems got their comeuppance in the 2016 election. The only good thing I can say about that result is that at last I am seeing some articles on why this happened, and belated 'if only' regrets from some politicians. Of course, Hillary still cannot see any of it. The Frank book has little good to say about the Clintons, and I have to say i agree with a lot of it. I wish I had enough money at the time to send the book to many more people, including Dem party stalwarts and some members of Congress.