This is rather ludicrous. I have A Tale of Two Cities on my desk, right next to my computer, with my bookmark inserted at the end of Chapter 1, and although January 31st is looming ever closer, instead of picking it up and plodding through Dickens, I’m blogging.
Like, I never blog unless I have absolutely nothing else to do or unless there is some earth-shattering thing to say. But suddenly this evening it is of immense importance that I blog, even to the point of abandoning Dickens for the sake of blogging.

So instead of reading a book, I’ll write about books.

I’ve been thinking the last couple months that I haven’t read near as much as I should. Since I buy abou 5 books (on average) from Amazon every month, and probably read about 1 a month, my “to read” pile is growing much faster than my “already read” pile. Like most people, I always make excuses and tell myself that “next week I’ll have time to read that book” or “I’ll read that on my next vacation.” Yeah right. The only book I actually read while on vacation was Tess of the D’Urbervilles and I bought that one while traveling, I didn’t bring it with the intention of reading it. Anyways, I’m always trying to think of ways to fool myself into things I should do, so my latest ploy has been to write up a 3 month schedule of reading, with 1 book per week. Well, on Tale of Two Cities, Atlas Shrugged, and Brothers Karamazov I’m allotting 2 weeks, which is pretty darn generous. My theory is that I’ll realize I can’t just put off all my books until the last week of March, so I’ll be more apt to read 1 every week if I know there will be another one due the next week. It has worked.

So far.

I not only read my assigned books, I read 5 extra. That makes for a total of 8 books this month. All but one of them are books I own, books which sit  quietly on my shelfs, silently begging me to pick them up and read. I’m excited to see more of them stacking up in my “already read” pile. Makes me feel good.

Anyways, in the spirit of procrastination and trying to avoid Dickens, let me list the books I have read with a brief review of them.

1) Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor. I have this love/hate relationship with Flannery O’Connor’s fiction. Technically, it isn’t hate, it is just an “I don’t get what you’re talking about” feeling versus a “That’s the most profound thing I’ve ever heard” feeling. This book was a collection of her essays and speeches, primarily on writing. They are much more accessible than her fiction. You don’t have to wade through artificial legs, nasty grandmothers, serial killers, and all that interesting stuff that makes Flannery O’Connor well,  Flannery O’Connor. There are some really great comments she makes on writing and it has really inspired me to seek out authentic, real-life characters and plots in my own work instead of settling for anything less.

2) The Capitalist and The Entrepreneur by Peter Klein. While some of this was over my head, I appreciated the main theme: being an entrepreneur can’t be found in a magic formula or secret recipe. It is about knowing what consumers want, when they want it, and what price they are willing to pay for it. It brings to mind the Hayek vs. Keynes Round Two video where Hayek says, “put the wrenches away, the economy’s organic!” In contrast to the mechanical motor Keynes demonstrates, Hayek reminds us that the economy isn’t some circular flow or machine, it is comprised of millions of individuals trying to achieve their goals. And the entrepreneur is a fundamental part of that desire to obtain our ends. We can’t do everything and make everything. We don’t want to take risks. We don’t want to wait 5 years to get the first paycheck from a new invention. But the few that are willing to wait and risk everything are vital to the free market.

3) 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson. Since this is the first of a trilogy, I can’t really say how I liked it. I don’t know how it ends. But the plot was good, and the writing superb. I’m always looking out for modern people who can write well, and N.D. Wilson can do it. I read this mostly because I was thinking I might assign it to one of my sisters to read in their literature class. I’m also always curious to read anything remotely like C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia. I’m curious to see how other people portray both their Christianity, their imagination, and their commitment to good writing.

4) Manalive by G.K. Chesterton. I had to rush through this one because my sister was waiting to read it for her literature class, since the library has failed for almost a month to procure a normal, unabridged book copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (first they sent the movie, then I said I wanted the book, so they sent a comic book version, we’re still waiting…). I thought it was quite good. I couldn’t quite describe it. It is like a happy Dostoevsky, because the main character, nicknamed “Innocent” reminds me so much of Prince Myshkin in The Idiot. The theme is that this one strange individual encounters several people who seem confused, and sometimes threatened, by him. His joy, his vivacity, his simpleness of mind, and his passion for life seems to unnerve them. While it didn’t have much of a plot, as my sister pointed out, I liked the theme and thought it was quite good. G.K. Chesterton conveyed his ideas, the setting, and the characters very well. It did verge on the absurd (actually, I think it plunged into the absurd a few times) but this was only to make the reader realize what a glorious, beautiful world we have been given.

5) A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle. When I saw a used copy of this for sale at the library, I was intrigued and decided to read it. I know it is considered a “classic” so I wanted to read it to know if I should assign it to my sisters or not. I didn’t care for it much. I didn’t think the style of writing was very good. There were a few excellent parts, but overall, it was mediocre. The ending was weak. Spoiler alert: I knew how it would end as soon as one of those ladies told the girl about the one thing she had that It didn’t have. I got this sinking feeling and as I read on, I knew it was going to be that way. Of course, it would be Love that would overcome It. I mean, it doesn’t get much more cliched than that, right? I was hoping there might be something redemptive about the love, something that hinted more at the sacrificial nature of love, that love isn’t just a feeling we get or words we say…but I didn’t find anything like that in there. The whole idea and plot was pretty good. I liked the integration of some math/physics into the story, that was interesting. I also didn’t like that when the protagonists were being told about the battle between Good and Evil going on in the universe and they were asked to name some figures from Earth’s history that represented the Good/Light, one of them mentioned “Jesus” and then in the next breath, “Ghandi” and a score of other people. For being a supposedly Christian book (I think?) this idea isn’t exactly Christian. The whole premise of Christianity is that Jesus wasn’t a good man, He was the Son of God and our Savior who came to sacrifice Himself to satisfy the justice of God so that all those who might believe would be saved. To name Jesus and Euclid as being examples of Good on earth totally ignores the fundamental nature of Jesus: He was God and Man. He, the Eternal Lord of the Universe, “became flesh and dwelt among us,” and you can’t say that about Ghandi or Euclid.

6) Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper. I wasn’t very impressed by the one other book I read by Piper called Think. Don’t Waste Your Life was better. I liked his message and felt like it had a little more depth than Think, but I still am not impressed by Piper’s style of writing. His ideas seem to be captured in this mundane, casual style of writing.

7) The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I’ve been curious about this since I was down South this summer and all the elderly ladies were talking about it. According to them, it is a very accurate portrayal of life in the South during the 60′s. Because of that, I thought it would be worth reading. I liked some things about it, but I didn’t feel there was much character development. When a young lady tries to create her own identify and “grow up” by buying short skirts and low-necked dresses, you have to wonder how much she’s really learned or matured. The style of writing was quite good, I thought, considering that it is not only a modern book but also hugely popular. I didn’t like some of the language used, so if you’re going to read it, be aware there is some bad language.

8 ) Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris. I never got into the whole Rebelution movement, I guess because it came rather natural to me to always be striving to do new things. It wasn’t (and isn’t) a revolutionary idea that young people need to apply themselves and actually start using their minds instead of just entertaining themselves. So although it was preaching to the choir for me, it was good. I’ll probably have my sisters read it in the next couple years. And I think I’ve gotten stuck in a “I’m so busy with work” rut lately, so the book did inspire me to not give up and to try to manage my time better so I have an opportunity to do more hard things.

And that brings us to…A Tale of Two Cities which is still patiently sitting beside me. Don’t get me wrong, I like Dickens. Great Expectations was great. So was Oliver Twist. It is just that I’m a little daunted by such a big book with so much going on. And I have to really concentrate because Dickens apparently never learned how to write a simple sentence. His sentences run for paragraphs and paragraphs (ok, not quite that bad) so it takes a lot of effort to keep my mind on going with the sentence.

I can’t think of anymore excuses, unless I go through my entire library and give reviews of every single book, so I must go try to get through another chapter tonight.

If you know me on Facebook then perhaps you were following my saga last night which went like this:

12 hours before class: “Bad news: FB finally forced me to get the new profile. Dislike. GOOD news: Mises Academy class starts TONIGHT!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!! ”

3 hours before class: “Class starts in 3 hours. I’ve got about 18 more pages to finish reading. This is really, really great though. I’m uber-excited!!! ”

10 minutes before class started: “This is great! I’m attending the first session of the Intro to Logic course!! It is AMAZING!! If you haven’t taken a Mises Academy course yet, you MUST do it!! ”

5 minutes after class ended: “I just left the first class of Intro to Logic from the Mises Academy. That was GREAT! And I mean, really, really, really, REALLY GREAT!!!!! ”

What I liked:

The spontaneity of the presentation. While there was order and purpose to the class, there was room for sidetracking depending on the students and their interest.

The interaction between the professor and students. About 2 minutes before it started some of the students started petitioning Professor Gordon to open with a logic joke. I don’t think he had time to come up with a good one then…perhaps next class he will.

The intellectual honesty of Professor Gordon. He didn’t say, “here, this book and this theory of knowledge is the only correct way to view the world. Everyone else is wrong. Just believe me.” He pointed out controversial ideas and explained why they were controversial and encouraged the students to study both sides and come to their own conclusions. I liked that a lot.

What I didn’t like:

The speed of the class. Personally, I like things to go a little slower. I’m used to taking recorded classes where I can pause it and take notes or think about it. Once when I was explaining this to Professor Salerno at Mises U, he suggested that I simply raise my hand during class and he would freeze until I motioned him to continue. Suffice to say, I didn’t do that. It is a little intimidating to raise your hand in that way in Prof. Salerno’s class. But anyways…I plan to watch the recorded video again when it is ready. Especially at the end when Prof. Gordon was introducing some specific examples of logical fallacies, I would have liked a bit more time to think it over and make it really solid in my mind. This is probably an entirely personal thing as it appeared that everyone else was picking it up fine. I’m just used to a little different style of learning.

The irrelevance of the instant messaging. Again, this is probably just me. I’m easily distracted and it annoys me to have any sort of distractions while trying to do any sort of mental exercises. Some of the students were talking the entire time about things not really relevant to the class. I would like to follow their conversations (like the condition of Afghanistan under US occupation) but not during the live class. So it would have been nice if the conversations could be limited to things pertaining to the class. There is a way to hide the instant messaging, but there are a lot of good comments and questions that I don’t want to miss, so I didn’t really want to do it that way.

I suspect that people coming out of a traditional school background would get over some of these problems better than I do. I’m used to learning at my speed in my own distraction-free (for the most part!) environment and so forth. But this is good practice for me because I won’t always have ideal situations.

Overall, the interest and enthusiasm was amazing. The other students are truly interested in this subject and have a deep desire to learn. I think that is what sets this apart from an ordinary college course. They’re not taking it for the credits. They’re taking it for the information and knowledge.

I also like the great diversity among the students. While at a traditional college you will see kids from all over the world, you usually don’t study with people of all ages from all over the world engaged in all sorts of occupations, from homeschool student to ambassador to soldier to retired mother, etc…

So while the class was a little challenging for me, it was GREAT and I can’t wait till next week!!! It is fun to learn with other people and not just little ole me.

Also, good news from Professor Gordon: We don’t have to write any essays this week. And we don’t have to know everything in the logic book he’s using. I spent about 3 hours reading and studying the assigned chapter, thinking “wow, this is going to be a tough course” because the book is quite dense and hard to read. I liked it, but it took a lot of thinking. Thankfully Prof Gordon said that he’ll only be using some of the main points from the text and skipping over some of the finer points.

In a couple weeks I’ll be taking David Gordon’s “How to Think: An Introduction to Logic.” Words can’t describe how excited I am. This is like telling a kid, “hey, you get to go to Disneyland for 7 weeks!” or, well, I’m not sure what can compare to the uber amazing thought of taking this course. David Gordon wrote a great article about his course for Mises Daily, you can read it here. That’s what got me really going about how fantastic this course will be.

I took a formal logic class a couple years ago and really loved it. I still use the classical syllogism (and of course, the “therefore” symbol, WordPress doesn’t have it, but Mac Pages does, it is just a triangle of 3 small dots, but I use it a lot, even in informal situations) when I’m confused about an argument. So I’m excited at the thought of getting to do more formal logic (I just hope there aren’t a ton of logic proofs to do, I’m not very fond of those) just for the fun of it. But then Prof. Gordon is going to apply that logic to political philosophy and economics, analyzing common fallacies that come up when people argue against a free market, etc…Here’s a quote from the article:

We will discuss a number of other common fallacies, and by the end of the course, you should be able to diagnose the mistakes of most of the arguments you encounter. The course emphasizes class participation: you are encouraged to send in arguments that you would like analyzed. If you do, I’ll go over them with the class.

How great is that? And beware…after this class I’ll be able to convince everyone that I’m right…by using logic too!

This will also be my first “real” live course. Ever. In anything. I’ve taken live lectures before, but they don’t have exams, homework, and the like. I’ve had exams and homework but it has just been from a book and not from a teacher or professor. It is very exciting, and will be a challenge, but I like difficult things.

And of course, it would be more fun if you joined the class too! Why not?

I decided it would be neat to have a “Resources” page with links to all sorts of fun and interesting sites. So if you have any ideas, please post it in a comment. Podcasts, radio shows, blogs, website, etc…anything that has to do with politics, liberty, and/or economics. Thanks!

Giving a speech in a couple weeks in Dublin, trying to think of a topic along the lines of “Vigilance and Freedom: Past, Present and Future.” That title seems to have a lot of potential. I will have enough time (around 45 minutes) to maybe going into detail on times when Americans weren’t vigilant (can anyone say, “Federal Reserve”?) and times when they were, such as Jefferson protesting the Alien and Sedition Acts. I’m looking for suggestions or ideas as well.

P.S. Dublin Georgia…not the famous Dublin. Sorry…didn’t want to mislead you there, but it does sound very impressive if I just say Dublin.

I don’t really have time to launch into one of those subjects I keep meaning to write about. I must prepare my economic and history classes for the week.

Yesterday I was working on the first lesson for my online class starting next semester. Exclusive information: If I can get this class prepared in the next few weeks, I might even do another one on American history! So for the first lesson I went back to Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics. It was very interesting. I had studied Aristotle and Aquinas from a religious perspective so it was fun to find out how their philosophies affected their economic thinking. And then today or tomorrow I’ll be looking at the early Classical school, J.B. Say, Adam Smith, etc…and that should be enlightening. Not many people realize how deeply flawed Adam Smith was. I think that this background on the Austrian school will help the students realize how important Menger was, what a significant development the theory of marginal utility was and so forth.

So…if you’re interested in an online class unmasking some of the lies the government has told us about American history, please let me know.

My initial reaction to the whole day: Wow. I’m tired.

Not sleeping well the night before certainly doesn’t help. I made more mistakes today than usual, “why does a value have good? Oh, oops…I mean, why does a good have value?” but I couldn’t really help that.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I certainly had fun. That was a great day! It was more enjoyable than having to cram as much as I could into 30 minutes or something like that, as when I speak at other events. I actually stayed on-time and we had plenty of time for discussion and questions.

It was nice to be able to present the whole foundation of Austrian economics, from a priori knowledge (the action axiom) to entrepreneurs, competition, inflation, etc…I enjoyed it all very much, as I hope the students did. And thanks to the Mises Institute and Jeremy Davis, I was able to send everyone home with lots of fliers, info, booklets and even a copy of “Pictures of a Socialistic Future.”

Memo to People Who Rule the World with a Weather Machine: Next time I have an economic workshop can you make it about 10 degrees cooler (about 65 would be perfect, but we could be content with 70) and a strong cool breeze, preferably from the south? It just gets a bit warm in the barn when it is 80 degrees out. And I wish the weather would be a bit more predictable, I never would have guessed it would be 80 degrees here in the middle of October. Thank you for your cooperation.

Perhaps it is too early in the morning…I just can’t seem to find something to write about. My mind is very focused (okay, no, I’m never very focused, how can one be on a Mac? But I’m trying pretty hard to stay concentrated) on the Economic Workshop on Saturday. Thanks to a generous friend, Jeremy Davis of Houston, I’ve been able to buy a large grease-board, markers, etc…and also I splurged and bought my own color ink cartridge. You don’t know how ridiculous this is. There is no one in Winnebago who prints color anymore. No one. Not the library. Not the drug store. No one. It is always quite the nightmare for me to find somewhere to print fliers or whatnot….so I told myself, “Come on, Savannah, really. You have the money. This would be a perfect way to put it to use. Just do it.” So I bought a $25 color cartridge. I know I can probably get it cheaper somewhere else, but I’m not ready to go running around Rockford looking for a $5 deal. So I came home and designed some fliers for my online class and printed them….in color. Suffice to say, they look very nice.

Back to the grease-board. It really isn’t feasible right now to get a big screen and projector and all for powerpoints. But I wanted some way to visually explain some of these economic concepts. Hence, the grease-board. I’m a little torn about it. On the one hand, I can see it as being outdated, clumsy to use, etc…and just not as useful as some of this new technology. But on the other hand, I think I’ll like the spontaneity of a grease-board over a prepared powerpoint. If someone doesn’t know how to spell a word, I can write it on the board. If we get off on another topic I wasn’t planning on, I can still draw diagrams and all. It seems to allow more freedom. But I haven’t used it for an actual event yet, so we’ll see how I feel after Saturday.

Sadly, there isn’t much to report…last night while playing piano I thought of some really good topic to discuss here, but of course I didn’t write it down, so I can’t remember now. Here are some odds and ends.

Yesterday the girls and I had a history class. It is usually on Wednesdays, but they were begging me to do it a day early. We were talking about the writing of the Constitution. I’m eager to buy Hans Hoppe’s book, “Democracy: The God That Failed.” I don’t think the girls quite understand the fundamental shift that occurred when the Articles of Confederation were abolished and the Constitution ratified. I’m having them do a project that I hope will help demonstrate this. I’m having them make a paper chain, and each link of the chain has a couple words from the Pledge of Allegiance. I know, I know…this sounds crazy. My mother said, “what? Have you gone out of your mind?” But there’s a reason for this. This chain, “united” by the Pledge of Allegiance is just that–a chain. We will talk about what it means for the country to be “indivisible.” How does this encourage more freedom? Are the links of this chain freer than they were before they were united? We’ll talk about some of these ideas…and of course, the Pledge of Allegiance itself. I hope it will give them a tangible way to think about decentralizing power.

And then last night another sister came in to “keep me company.” I usually reserve my evenings for studying, but I wanted to make the most of this opportunity. So I offered to read a book with her. Most of my books do not have pictures, so we looked at the Mises 2010 Book Catalog with lots of pictures. We also looked at the flier from the Institute, “About the Ludwig von Mises Institute” with pictures of  Mises and others. We saw a picture of Tom Woods, so then thanks to Facebook I could show her pictures of his cute girls…and also a picture of their new van. I told her about how nice Lew Rockwell is, and she said, “does he listen to everyone?” I think this was meant in the sense of someone who obeys their parents…and I wasn’t going to try to explain how he was nice and yet didn’t listen to the government. That will come in time. She can recognize Mises and Rothbard now in pictures. I said that Rothbard was a funny man, and fun to be around. She asked, “does he play lots of games?” And of course we had to tackle this Lincoln myth. I explained to her how mean Lincoln was, how he would throw good people in prison. So she carried on this little dialogue, “I will say to Lincoln, ‘I’ll be your friend’ but he will say, ‘No, I’m going to throw you in prison!’ I don’t want to be his friend!” Suffice to say, this girl isn’t going to grow up politically correct.

So that was an interesting evening, and probably unlike any other evening she spends reading books.

It is good to start them young, you know.

Actually, this was a report on Tuesday, so what about the Wednesday report? Since we did history yesterday, the rest of this week will be preparing for the workshop on Saturday. I’m going to go buy some materials and such that I’ll need. Really looking forward to it, should be a fun day. If you didn’t register but would like to come, please feel free to sign up  late. There aren’t any late fees or anything, you can still come!

You may have noticed the new buttons (graphics, not little round things on your clothes) on the right side of my site. While I know graphic artists who would do far better at this than I ever could, I don’t like to intrude on them all the time, so I’m slowly figuring out how to do it myself. You might be looking at all of that and thinking, “how does she find time to sleep!?” which is a correct question to ask as I am extremely busy. If you recall, I’m also doing two private classes for my special students (mainly, my sisters) on economics and history right now.

So, for the first one, the Tea Party Townhall on Saturday. I must say, I don’t know all the speakers at this event, I will not be speaking, I’m going to have a good time. I cannot say that you will agree with or support all of the positions held by the speakers, but just come anyways. No matter how you feel on particular issues, it will be an enjoyable day.

Secondly, education consulting. I really want to help families find an education style that fits their children. I know first-hand the benefits of homeschooling and am helping homeschool my sisters now. I’ve talked to many people who are interested in it but don’t know where to start. So I hope that this will provide them an opportunity to find some solutions.

Thirdly, I thought about doing a traditional economics course next semester. Traditional in the sense of a room with all the students and teacher present. But I realized that by implementing technology I already use, I can expand this course to people not necessarily living near me. I’m already excited by the curriculums and materials that I can combine and use. If nothing more, this class is going to be a great time for me.

So that’s what I’m working on and that’s why I haven’t been posting as much. I’ve been trying to think of some subject that I should complain about and spout out about, but haven’t thought of one…yet.