His–Story – More Than Just Dates and Dead Guys

Dreamers and Deceivers: True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America – Glenn Beck (Mercury Ink/Threshold Editions)

Unless you have been blessed to have been taught by one of those rare, magical, teachers who embraced the teaching of history and delivered depth, context and colors of the story of our nation and world; then all too often history was boiled down to the bland recitation of a list of dates and dead guys.

Glenn Beck and his team of writers is out with Dreamers and Deceivers: True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America, the second in a series of books that offer short historical “fiction” pieces that examine a variety of points in our history and flesh them out by piecing together a variety of sources. Is there a bit of poetic license? Certainly! But by in large these stories hang together and really make history interesting. I look at these short pieces as an invitation to delve a whole lot deeper into the stories that catch your imagination.

 

The names: Ponzi, Sacco and Vanzetti, and Steve Jobs, among them, are often familiar, but their stories may not be. Dreamers and Deceivers offers up some new perspective on the stories of these men who influenced our history. While Ponzi became infamous for his “scheme” exactly what that ruse was may not be widely known; now you can get a basic sense of his story.

It is often eye opening to learn how the media and history for that matter treated many of the subjects of these stories. It seems amazing, but not surprising that the media still lauded Alger Hiss, a convicted perjurer and Communist upon his passing; Hiss infamously thought more highly of mass-murdering, Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin than he did of his own country. When you place that historical reference side by side with the current Liberal school of thought and how we as a country view terrorism, history becomes absolutely frightening.

How Much Is Enough?

Conform – Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education – Glenn Beck (Threshold Editions/Mercury Radio Arts)

For years when it comes to public education, I have been asking the question; how much is enough? That simple question has now taken on a much greater meaning; while I was asking it about from the straight forward financial perspective, with the advent of Common Core, that question has now expand to include government control of our and our students lives.

Media mogul Glenn Beck offers up the second installment in his Control series; Conform – Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education, which offers up a basic primer not only on the roots and breadth of Common Core, but also spells out a broad based break down of systemic problems with the U.S. public education system.

Naturally, because Beck is who he is, this will no doubt engender howls of protest and name-calling, but the fact of the matter is he does arm folks with the basic understanding they need to fight back against Common Core before it becomes deeply engrained in the education system. While the career path training may sound good and has certainly proven the strange bedfellows analogy by drawing interest and support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and business organizations across the U.S., the longitudinal computer tracking of students through out there educational career and on into their career path is downright scary.

Clearly, anyone with even a modicum of common sense will recognize that Common Core’s twisted approach to education will do nothing to improve outcomes and sets up the perpetual argument that the only reason why it failed is of course, because we didn’t spend enough money! Not that it was doomed to fail from the start.

The U.S. education system is beyond repair until we address the systemic issues that have become deeply seated and are protected by education fiefdoms and teachers unions. Taxpayers are saddled with too many school districts that duplicate too many administrative functions at too great a cost. The city that I grew up in upstate New York is divided into four separate school districts in a relatively small geographic area. There are 500(!) school districts spread across the 67 counties that make up Pennsylvania; that means 500 school superintendents, 500 district administrative staffs and the high costs inherent to these systems.

Unions are designed to do two things; perpetuate unions and protect the worst teachers, keeping them in the classroom and subjecting students to their mediocre skills. Until we create a system that properly measures and rewards highly skilled teachers and frees those less than stellar teachers to pursue their true career path, we will continue to lag behind the rest of the world in educational outcomes.

Real History: More than Just Dates and Dead Guys

Miracles and Massacres – True and Untold Stories of America – Glenn Beck (Threshold Editions)

History. The mere mention of the word can send shivers of dread up the average person’s spine. Anyone who ever has ever suffered through the average public school teacher’s history class can attest to just how boring the subject of history, in this case U. S. history, can truly be.

So what was it that made history sooooo boring? If you think about it, it’s what’s missing…great stories! Think about it…if history was delivered in a fashion that was more than just dates and dead guys and actually delivered so color and context; told real stories then maybe, just maybe history would be more entertaining.

 

Well the proof of that thought is in the pudding…the pudding in this case is Miracles and Massacres – True and Untold Stories of America from Glenn Beck. Beck and his team have taken a series of seminal American stories, warts and all, and illustrated with a injection of drama and insight and gotten the history side of the story through in an interesting and dare I say, entertaining fashion.

If you think you know the story of the My Lai Massacre, or Tokyo Rose or even more recent events like the so-called ‘20^th highjacker” of 9/11, I would bet that you will learn something new to the story. Perhaps the most intriguing story in the lot is that of industrial titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. Edison has been heralded as a heroic inventor that had a profound impact on all of our lives. In truth, Edison was a villainous, treacherous, nasty guy.

While Beck and company cop to taking some poetic license with broad brushstrokes in the stories, but not with the facts. Bottom line the facts stand and the tale sells the story. Let’s hope that this will lead to other pieces of our history being touched on in future editions of what will become a series of books.

 

 

Finally! The Truth About Guns

Glenn Beck – Control: Exposing The Truth About Guns (Mercury Radio Arts/Threshold Editions)

I remember the conversation vividly. The national director of one of the nation’s largest gun control advocacy groups was in town for a second straight year to appear on at a local college campus to preach the need for gun control.

It was at a time when guns were a hot issue, with a spate of school shootings ranging from Pearl, Mississippi to West Paducah, Kentucky and Jonesboro, Arkansas had hit home with the shooting death of local Edinboro teacher John Gillette. As with all high profile incidents, the push was on for new, allegedly tougher, gun control measures to be put in place to “prevent this tragedy from ever happening again.” You never want to let a good crisis go to waste.

I had desperately tried to get the gun controller to appear on my show to debate the issue. On his first pass through town I got no returned phone call from his DC based office or from the local folks at the college. I had debated a wide range of folks on the issue of gun-control; capped I thought by a discussion with children’s book author Stan Berenstain, who had authored one of his Berenstain Bears books entitled No Guns Allowed; during which my responses to his silly points so enraged the author that he gutlessly slammed down the phone, leaving me to finish the debate with a dial tone.

On his second trip through Erie, the gun controller choose a different venue, where I had better contacts and while I still got the cold shoulder on him appearing on my show, I did manage to get in the same room with him prior to his appearance. When I asked him why he would appear on my show, he took my arm and took me to an empty corner and quietly said to me, “I’ve heard you debate the issue and I know I can’t win, so I won’t do [the show] it.”

And that is truly the cornerstone of the debate over gun control for me and the basis of Glenn Beck’s new bestselling book; Control: Exposing The Truth About Guns. Beck cites example after example after example of how gun controllers frame their case for more laws and more control based on fiction, half-truths and outright lies. It’s as if they borrowed a page from Joseph Goebbels, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

I can see the impact that the repetition of the lies has had on family and friends. At a holiday gathering shortly after the Newtown, Connecticut shootings, the inevitable discussion of “doing something to put a stop to this” came up. While I try to keep things on the lighter side with family, the hockey lockout was still in full effect so I could avoid the discussion. I may have let my blood pressure slip just a bit when I heard the standard lines about “assault weapons” and the need for background checks; I calmly (or so I thought) asked exactly what my family member thought an assault weapon was? Like most clueless members of the media, I received a blank stare and a shrug of the shoulders and a limp, “like the kid used in Newtown.”

I’d like to personally thank Glenn and his team for saving my familial relationships and my blood pressure! Now instead of trying (!!) to remain calm and explaining the where my family and friends have been mislead, I simply visit the truck of my car, take out another copy of Control: Exposing The Truth About Guns, hand it to the misguided individual with the promise that I will gladly discuss guns and gun control with them after they have finished reading the book. If I ever have the opportunity to cross paths with the likes of sniveling Piers Morgan or Rachel Maddow (that guy really pisses me off!) I plan to slug them in the nose for all the money they have cost me for these books!

One little addition I would make for those who end up arguing with idiots on gun control that truly stops these gun control nitwits in their tracks; ask them if they truly are so set against guns if they would be willing to post a small sign outside their home stating “NO GUNS ON PREMISIS.” It would show how strong their beliefs truly are and act as an open invitation for bad things to happen.