The Vine: March 8, 2007
Hey Sars,
LF should try Jeff Shaara’s Rise to Rebellion. It’s a well researched historical fiction (though more history than fiction) work that reads like a novel, following the main players of the Revolutionary War on both the British and American sides. The second volume focuses a bit more on the war, but this first one is mostly on politics and culture.
Hope that helps,
JG
Dear JG,
Thanks for the suggestion — other readers recommended that book as well. Additional books appear below; if I got it more than once, it’s asterisked.
Thomas B. Allen, George Washington, Spymaster: How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War
Bernard Bailyn, To Begin the World Anew
Carol Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers
Catherine Drinker Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution
Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton *
Ed Countryman, The American Revolution
Kenneth C. Davis, Don’t Know Much About History: Everything You Need To KNow About American History But Never Learned
Joseph Ellis, American Sphinx
Joseph Ellis, His Excellency
Joseph Ellis, Founding Brothers *
David Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride
Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life *
John Jakes, The Kent Family Chronicles
Paul Johnson, A History of the American People
James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776
David McCullough, John Adams *
Edmund S. Morgan, The Birth of the Republic 1763-89
Gary B. Nash, The Unknown American Revolution
Ray Raphael, A People’s History of the American Revolution *
Resch, Sargent, and Shy, eds., War and Society in the American Revolution
Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers
Jeff Shaara, The Glorious Cause
Barbara Tuchman, The First Salute *
Gore Vidal, Burr *
Gordon Wood, The American Revolution: A History
Gordon Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution *
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States *
Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People’s History of the United States
Hey Sars,
I think your Twinkie fan may have confused Hostess Twinkies with Dolly Madison Zingers. Dolly Madison puts out a cream-filled carrot cake with cream cheese-esque icing. They call them simply “Dolly Madison Carrot Cakes.” They’re pretty much the same shape as a Twinkie, though, so it’s easy to confuse the two. Unfortunately the website for International Baking Co., which owns both Hostess and Dolly Madison, isn’t very informative.
JD in Big D
Dear JDiBD,
The other responses overwhelmingly agreed with you. Others suggested that she’s thinking of Weight Watchers carrot cake, a Vachon two-pack of carrot cakes (Vachon is the Canadian Hostess), or a plain old Hostess carrot cake; several people recommended heading over to PCJM and either browsing the archives or asking Gael. And I can’t disagree, because that site rocks.
I…have a relationship question. Issue. Thing. Bleh. Okay, here it goes:
I met this guy, M, online over the summer. We were role-playing on a text-based game and while we didn’t hit it off at first, I wasn’t against RPing with him again.
Then we met up again on a different game, unaware of the other characters that the person on the other side of the screen plays. We found out, eventually, and then one thing led to another and next thing we know? We’re in a long-distance relationship.
Which…is where the problem comes in, kinda. He’s…not anti-religion, exactly. But he doesn’t really want much to do with religion, in general, and he’s very against raising his kids to any religion (…yes, it’s gotten serious enough that the topic of having kids has come up once or twice; we’re both agreed that, if we have any, we’re waiting until 1) we’re both out of college and 2) we can support them). In his words, “They can start marking their souls at the same time they’re old enough to start marking their bodies.”
I’m Jewish. And this? This…bugs. It bugs a lot. And it bugs even more that I can’t quite put my finger on why it bugs me.
And it’s starting to bug him, too, now. He says he has a lot of friends who’re in various religions that he trusts and whom he can point the kids to, when they’re old enough. But I can’t help but think, “You’re never going to say they’re old enough until they’re thirty. And then it’ll be too late.” Which…argh!
I’ve tried compromising. I’ve suggested that we could introduce the kids to a variety of religions as they grow up, and espouse the philosophy that they’re all choices — and, no matter which choice either of their parents have picked, they (the kids) can pick any choice that seems to fit them best. He…still doesn’t want to really bring up religion until we’re ready to start bringing up sex and drugs to the kids (and on that: he actually said he’d rather have the kids get into drugs than have them getting into religion). Granted, we don’t even have one phone call between my bringing up that potential compromise (and I’m not even sure he’s gotten all the nuances there.) But…
Pretty much, I wanna get this figured out before kids come along. And if there is no figuring it out? I wanna know that too.
I’m kinda of the opinion that late teens is a bit late to start educating the kids in religion. If they decide that, hey, Judaism isn’t for them, and they want to go explore something else? Fine; I wish them the best of luck and as long as they’re happy in their choice and not mutilating themselves, other people, or committing acts of cruelty to animals…they can do whatever they want on that front, really.
Last phone call (last night) he kept saying every time I brought up the compromise, “Yes, but you’ll secretly be pushing them towards Judaism.”
I guess part of it might be that I want them to be aware of their heritage and culture. Thing is…a lot of Jewish culture is tied up around our religion. So…yeah.
So, to wrap up? 1) He doesn’t want to bring up religion until they’re in their teens, around the same time we’ll be bringing up sex and drugs;
2) I’m Jewish;
3) I’ve offered a potential compromise, but he wants none of it (or rather, he does — he just wants to move the date back to when they’re in their teens — which is the same thing, really, isn’t it?).
…Can you help me figure out how to explain to him what it is I want, please?
Ix
Dear Ix,
I think he’s pretty clear on what you want. It’s you who seems a bit unclear on the fact that a) he knows what he wants, and b) he’s not going to back down from it.
You’ve got the cart pretty far out in front of the horse here in the second place, in my opinion; you should probably see if you can make the relationship work in person, versus long-distance, before you spend much more time trying to change his mind on the raising-your-kids-with-religion question. But the central issue here is that you’re trying to change his mind, and you…can’t. His mind is made up.
And as he gets older, he may change it. My parents, from what I can tell, didn’t have much use for churchgoing in their twenties, but they raised me and my brother in a nice little congregation; people’s positions on this can and do evolve. I don’t mean this in a dismissive way, because it’s not like people are incapable of forming valid opinions in their late teens and early twenties, obviously, but in my experience, a college student’s take on organized religion is not always the most nuanced, particularly if said take is along the lines of “what’s the point of it” or “meh.” Maybe it’s worth giving him some time to track back towards the center on the idea.
The bottom line here is that the two of you don’t agree, and that continuing to argue the point with him is getting you nowhere. You have three choices: decide you can’t live with his attitude towards your religio-cultural heritage, and break things off; keep debating the fine points with him until it consumes your relationship; or table the issue until it’s a bit more relevant to your life together. This is a fairly important thing to have in common (or not, as the case may be), and in a long-term relationship where you’re building a family, whether it’s just you two or kids as well, you should have a harmonious approach to it even if you don’t entirely agree. I’m not telling you what to do, and if you think he doesn’t respect your stance here, well, you’ll do what you think is best. But it seems a little early to be planting a flag on this issue, to me.
And for the record, you need to bring up sex and drugs way before their teens, too. If you haven’t been speaking to them frankly all along about the facts and your expectations, 15 is too late.
Tags: Ask The Readers boys (and girls) kids popcult retail
By the way, to the person who wanted books on the American Revolution that read like novels — if you feel like expanding beyond the American Revolution later, I’ve recently read two similarly novelistic books on different revolutions:
– Vive La Revolution is a hilarious book on the French Revolution by BBC comedian Mark Steel (I read it at the same time as several other books on the French Revolution for a class, and despite the humor, it’s also a very accurate and informative depiction of the revolution)
– 10 Days That Shook the World is the American journalist John Reed’s memoir of the Russian Revolution, which he experienced firsthand. It’s an incredible read; he has quite the eye (and ear) for details that capture the moment, and he also prints excerpts of speeches, leaflets, etc. that help to convey the scene better than nearly anything else I’ve read about this revolution.