Day 23006

Years of newspaper writing taught me to get to the point in my writing, and to not bury the lead. So, here it goes. This country is obviously within a new Gilded Age, and I do not mean that in a good way.

This notion comes about due to a confluence of outside stimulus with a tendency for a mind to wander. It is no secret that I have always enjoyed learning about history and civics. In college, they used the term political science instead of civics. It’s essentially the same thing except that in elementary school civics it was never taught how much of a blood sport political science is.

At any point in time, I am usually in the midst of reading a book on either history or political science. At the same time, I’m usually reading a novel, completely different than the serious topic I am also absorbing. It works like this:

Each day, I commute about 40 minutes each way to and from work. Commuters have their own way to deal with being stuck in a car in traffic. I’m not much into podcasts, mostly because they are very similar to regular radio in that there is too many ads. Music can always be relaxing and I admit to screaming along with AC/DC from time to time.

What I find most enjoyable are audio books. I won’t go as far to claim that this is reading, but it’s the next best thing. At home in my favorite chair or in bed before lights out, I will read. The general rule when two books are going is that one will be non-fiction and the other fiction. Two non-fiction books are fine, but two novels at a time has the effect of confusing me.

Currently, the reading book is “The History of the Arts” by Hendrick Van Loon. It’s an engaging book that was written in 1937. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes that sort of thing. The other book I’m reading is “Grant,” a biography of Ulysess S. Grant by Ron Chernow.

It has been the Grant book that has been most enlightening. My sense of Grant has always been that as a general, he was pretty good, if a little brutal. As a president, he was horrible. What I’m coming away with, though, is that my education was lacking in the kind of man Grant had been and unreformed Confederates created a false narrative that extended well into the 20^th Century.

Was Grant corrupt? Absolutely not. His problem was that he was too trusting of his crooked friends. It’s sad, really, and really only understood if you have been betrayed by a friend. Grant was the perfect foil for the speculators and crooks of the Gilded Age, in which it seems everyone was out to make a buck by either exploiting workers or just outright stealing it.

This set up a society in which the hard-fought victory in the Civil War was squandered away with a failed reconstruction.

The term ‘gilded’ refers to a golden veneer put over ordinary items to make them look fancy. So, when we refer to the Gilded Age, it refers to a veneer of riches covering the ugliness of inequity and racism.

Funny how that is still happening.

I gotta tell you, I’m ready to be done with the Grant book. It’s depressing me to much when I’m struck the realization that things have not really changed that much, except that the crooks now are bolder and more sophisticated. I just now learned as I was searching for a image to go with this that there is an actual television show called “The Gilded Age” which seems to be a celebration of those times. Good grief!

For those of you who read this far, I apologize. I’ll be more cheerful tomorrow.