Hot Fudge Book Club

[Random Douchebag]

I finished reading "Sense and Sensibility" about a week ago and I have to say that I liked "Pride and Prejudice" a lot better. Both are by Jane Austen. I read Charles Dickens "Great Expectations" about a month ago and I'm not a fan of open ended endings. I'm going to wait to read "A Tale of Two Cities" by the same author for the that very reason. I'm currently reading "The Scarlet Letter" and I am enjoying the story very much so far.

Did Beav or JMY hand out HFD reading assignments?

[jmy]

I don't say this out loud very often, but I don't like Dickens or Austen. So, it wasn't me.

I read In the Garden of Beasts not too long ago, same guy who wrote White City. It's pretty good.

[middle aged female]

I don't say this out loud very often, but I don't like Dickens or Austen. So, it wasn't me.

I read In the Garden of Beasts not too long ago, same guy who wrote White City. It's pretty good.

I read White City last summer and loved it. I've been meaning to pick up Garden of Beasts; now I will definitely do so.

[MICHIGAN]

I finished reading "Sense and Sensibility" about a week ago and I have to say that I liked "Pride and Prejudice" a lot better. Both are by Jane Austen. I read Charles Dickens "Great Expectations" about a month ago and I'm not a fan of open ended endings. I'm going to wait to read "A Tale of Two Cities" by the same author for the that very reason. I'm currently reading "The Scarlet Letter" and I am enjoying the story very much so far.

Based on your list above, May I suggest Edith Wharton's Custom Of The Country and The Age Of Innocence be added to your great books list. Oh, and read Persuasion, just wonderful Austen.

[Ya Mar]

To celebrate indigenous people's day, I picked up "A People's History..." once again this weekend to really try and get through it. Made it about 30 pages this time before I had to put it back down. I'll keep trying and will report back on progress..

[Andy]

To celebrate indigenous people's day, I picked up "A People's History..." once again this weekend to really try and get through it. Made it about 30 pages this time before I had to put it back down. I'll keep trying and will report back on progress..

I just finished that a few weeks ago. I found a version that ended in the late 1970s during a visit to John King.

The casual way Columbus and subsequent groups administered death was an eyebrow-raiser. From testing the sharpness of a sword on a random Indian child to cornering the toughest fighters and slaughtering them in front of their families, or giving them a bunch of blankets that were known to be infested with small pox.

Happy Columbus Day.

[middle aged female]

To celebrate indigenous people's day, I picked up "A People's History..." once again this weekend to really try and get through it. Made it about 30 pages this time before I had to put it back down. I'll keep trying and will report back on progress..

I just finished that a few weeks ago. I found a version that ended in the late 1970s during a visit to John King.

The casual way Columbus and subsequent groups administered death was an eyebrow-raiser. From testing the sharpness of a sword on a random Indian child to cornering the toughest fighters and slaughtering them in front of their families, or giving them a bunch of blankets that were known to be infested with small pox.

Happy Columbus Day.

I should post this on FB where I saw some idiot say something about not being able to celebrate "our history" anymore. I wonder if they'd still be proud to be of the founding class.

[guest]

To celebrate indigenous people's day, I picked up "A People's History..." once again this weekend to really try and get through it. Made it about 30 pages this time before I had to put it back down. I'll keep trying and will report back on progress..

I just finished that a few weeks ago. I found a version that ended in the late 1970s during a visit to John King.

The casual way Columbus and subsequent groups administered death was an eyebrow-raiser. From testing the sharpness of a sword on a random Indian child to cornering the toughest fighters and slaughtering them in front of their families, or giving them a bunch of blankets that were known to be infested with small pox.

Happy Columbus Day.

I should post this on FB where I saw some idiot say something about not being able to celebrate "our history" anymore. I wonder if they'd still be proud to be of the founding class.

I stopped by the post office to check my box but found it closed for Columbus Day. I thought "way to rub salt in a wound".

[MICHIGAN]

To celebrate indigenous people's day, I picked up "A People's History..." once again this weekend to really try and get through it. Made it about 30 pages this time before I had to put it back down. I'll keep trying and will report back on progress..

I just finished that a few weeks ago. I found a version that ended in the late 1970s during a visit to John King.

The casual way Columbus and subsequent groups administered death was an eyebrow-raiser. From testing the sharpness of a sword on a random Indian child to cornering the toughest fighters and slaughtering them in front of their families, or giving them a bunch of blankets that were known to be infested with small pox.

Happy Columbus Day.

I should post this on FB where I saw some idiot say something about not being able to celebrate "our history" anymore. I wonder if they'd still be proud to be of the founding class.

I stopped by the post office to check my box but found it closed for Columbus Day. I thought "way to rub salt in a wound".

I read De Las Casas back in high school like the rest of you. But I still am glad Columbus made the trip. None of us would be here, or anywhere for that matter, if he hadn't.

It is all well and good to condemn the Spaniards with modern morality, they did some horrible things. But the mythical "noble savage" that is offered up as the antagonistic counterweight is bothersome. The native Americans, Indians for lack of a better word for the broad group of people occupying North and South America at the time, were not so noble, but very savage. Given the opportunity they would have done to Europe, or Africa, or Asia, just what was done to them. In reality, they were doing it to each other regularly. The Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans- not people you would want to meet on their best day. Have any of you watched The Emperor's New Groove yet?

Don't discount the fact that the Spaniards were coming off of a long culturally crushing occupation by the Mores. They were a highly militarized and their culture celebrated defeating your enemy for the glory of God. Hence all non-Christians were enemies. I don't want to apologize for the behavior of the Spaniards, or French, or British, or Dutch, or Portuguese. I just want to be realistic about the world and man's place in it at that time.

I for one think that the USA, while far from perfect, turned out to be a pretty fucking cool place to spend your 7 or 8 decades on the planet. For that I say, "Thanks Chris".
Sorry, carry on beating on the poor Genoese boy.

[Craig]

I don't condone or excuse the cruelty of any of the European explorers and colonists, but there are two points that I use to weigh or counter-balance the bad-ol'-Columbus drumbeat. First, native Americans practiced unspeakable cruelties upon one another as well as upon Europeans who fell under their control. No, not all were bloodthirsty, no more than every European was genocidal, but it seems to me that there is a long list of documentary evidence of natives flaying alive their captives, roasting live people over fires, and the like. Leave aside the ritualistic and systemized killing in the well-organized societies of pre-Columbian America and there are still plenty of cases to make one's hair stand on end. Bottom line: natives as peaceful and non-violent innocents is a myth and terribly unfair to the vicitims of their work. I'm not saying that Columbus & ilk knew of the violent dimensions of native culture and in some way did unto them before it could be done unto themselves first, but it does give relevance to the question of what an American colonization of Europe would have looked like if winds of technology, organization, and wealth had favored the new world over the old.

A second consideration is the uncertainty among many that the new people encountered were people at all. Sounds crazy in this age of genetic discovery and the established fact that color, facial features, crania, etc. mean absolutely nothing in the sense of genetic heritage, but at least some on both sides of the colonist/colonized divide were uncertain the other were humans. In light of that uncertainty it must have been a lot easier for all involved to exterminate man-like things if there were questions about the sentience and soul-bearing nature of the others.

No pass for Columbus and the conquistadors and then all else who followed in America, Africa, Pacific, etc. But, I say that on balance we are a bloody-minded species, and the lesson from the stacks of dead from history is to work for justice in the present. Oh, and the new world gave all kinds of VD to the old world, so there's that to consider, too.

[Roquefort Robert]

Both of the previous posts are good arguments. I just wish we would stop giving Columbus a holiday to celebrate.

[The Beav]

Both of the previous posts are good arguments. I just wish we would stop giving Columbus a holiday to celebrate.

Girl I dated in college (from Queens) was so used to getting Columbus Day off from school that her freshman year, she took off home the week before and came back on Monday night before checking the syllabus. She missed an exam.

I never remember it being recognized as a holiday other than no mail.

[middle aged female]

Both of the previous posts are good arguments. I just wish we would stop giving Columbus a holiday to celebrate.

I agree, considering he never set foot in what is now known as the good ol' U.S of A

[gullycanyon]

A big Gully thumbs-up to Michigan & Craig for their illuminating & thought-provoking posts.

[Roquefort Robert]

Both of the previous posts are good arguments. I just wish we would stop giving Columbus a holiday to celebrate.

Girl I dated in college (from Queens) was so used to getting Columbus Day off from school that her freshman year, she took off home the week before and came back on Monday night before checking the syllabus. She missed an exam.

I know that chick. She used to post here. Very attractive, I can't believe you let that one get away.