1969: The Year Everything Changed by Rob Kirkpatrick - Book Review

 

BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS 

1969: The Year Everything Changed by Rob Kirkpatrick

1969 was my 29th year, I was there, and this incredibly well-written and well-edited book took me back to a place I nearly missed in my action packed fast moving life. I especially loved the book for its rapid fire factual delivery of the real history. The book is worthy of more than five stars.

EXCERPTS

The FBI declared war on the Black Panther Party, and the Weathermen declared war on America. The Stonewall Riots inspired the birth of the Gay Rights movement, and the Indians of All Tribes’ seizure of Alcatraz Island began the Red Power movement. The Santa Barbara Oil Slick, the Cuyahoga River fire, and People’s Park gave impetus to the Ecology movement. It was the year when the Revolution came to the suburbs, and when they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. In a single year, America saw the peaks and valleys of an entire decade—the death of the old and the birth of the

There had been a darker side to him. Classmates remembered Nixon as a loner with streaks of meanness, even paranoia. Hailing from a modest, middle-class, Quaker family, he would carry a lifelong suspicion of those with privileged backgrounds.

During the inaugural parade, the new president encountered the extremes that would mark much of his term. A float from the group “Up with People” sent good vibes to the onlookers lined up in their winter coats. Cheering crowds greeted him for the first few blocks as the presidential motorcade proceeded on its way from the Capitol building to Nixon’s new home on Pennsylvania Avenue. But as the parade reached 13th Street, a double line of police struggled to keep back a group of war protesters, who threw sticks, stones, cans, and bottles at the presidential limousine while chanting, “Four more years of death!” and “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, the NLF is going to win.” One protester brandished a sign that mocked Nixon’s ’68 campaign slogan: NIXON’S THE ONE—THE NO. 1 WAR CRIMINAL. Some demonstrators spit at the police. Others took the small American flags that had been distributed by local Boy Scouts and burned them. It was the first time in the nation’s history that an inauguration parade had been so marred.

Onto 15th Street, the atmosphere changed. Onlookers assembled in front of the Washington Hotel and the Treasury Building applauded the new chief executive. Nixon ordered the sunroof opened so that he could stand and wave to the people—his people.

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Liberty's Dawn: A People's History of the Industrial Revolution by Emma Griffin' Book Review

BOOK REVIEW -FIVE STARS

Liberty's Dawn: A People's History of the Industrial Revolution by Emma Griffin

A look at the Industrial Revolution, its beginning, how it got started and the first fifty years.

This book is based on a collection of diaries of the working poor and their struggles to organize, better their lives, and guarantee some kind of economic rewards.

This book is a factual look into one of the most monumental achievements of the human condition and continues to unfold to this day.

EXCERPTS:

German visitor. The young Friedrich Engels spent two years in Manchester in the early 1840s.

His father had organised the stay to give his son a chance to complete his training in his own line of business – the cotton industry. But Friedrich, already deeply involved in the German Radical movement, seized upon the trip as an opportunity to conduct a first-hand study of the lives of the workers the factory employed.

The result, The Condition of the Working Class in England, shone a bright light on the most unsavoury consequences of England’s industrial transformation.

The industrial revolution was undoubtedly a time of economic opportunity, but the weight of existing social structures and cultural expectations kept women firmly shut out.

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Doings of Dudley Doolittle 8th Edition Persistence Pays...Or Dudley did it Again

Doings of Dudley Doolittle: This is the name I use in the sometimes hilarious, outrageous, or cynical short stories posted monthly.

A fictitious name will be used in most of the stories. It is there to protect the identity of the guilty.

These true stories are over half a century old or more.

PERSISTENCE PAYS…OR DUDLEY DID IT AGAIN!

Back in the nineteen sixties my friend Dudley took a truck driving job at the Superior Fiber Board plant in Superior, Wisconsin, while he was awaiting his two year stint in the navy to begin. The job wasn’t too complicated, it consisted of driving a dump truck filled with trimmings of fiberboard from the factory to the dump some five miles away, tipping up the box, dumping it as close to the fire as possible, and returning with the empty truck.

As Dudley was making one of his routine trips to the dump one day, he went through his usual procedure, but the fiberboard refused to slide out. Being the clever chap that he was he merely pulled ahead, then backed up and slammed on the brakes to dislodge the cargo…whoops! The load didn’t come out…the front of the truck instead began to raise high in the air, higher and higher, and finally back into the fire it all went…yes it all burned up and Dudley was off to the Navy.

The story doesn’t end here, in fact the plot thickens.

Yes, two years later Dudley was back at the Fiberboard plant and demanding his old job. They refused and Dudley, being a persistent Irishman that knew his rights, went to the proper government agency to put the pressure on management.

Reinstated on his job Dudley made his first trip to the dump. Did his usual routine, and lo and behold his cargo stuck again…Dudley knew exactly what to do, and he did it…yes the unthinkable.

Link to INDEX of Dudley Doolittle Stories

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