Friday, February 8, 2008

Page 123 meme plus musings

I am stealing this meme from Trees and flowers and birds. I have a vaige memory of doing something like this, but hey if I did it is a new book so might as well do it again.

The Rules

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more (no cheating!)

Find page 123

Find the first five sentences

Post the next three sentences


The book is "The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the World's Most Famous Scientist." I just got this book in the mail a couple days ago that is why I know I didn't do this book before. :-)

"Each time Hoover's agents drew up a summary of Einstein's "Red front" affiliations, they included more groups. For several years during the early 1950s, his "subversive" list grew at the rate of nearly one new "front group" per month. It wasn't that Einstein joined so many organizations during those waning years of his life, but McCarthy-Hooverism expanded its power, the Subversive Activites Control Board (SACB) and HUAC, the authorities on "subversive" groups, kept enlarging their lists."

So far I have really enjoyed the book. I went on to this one after reading
Einstein: A Biography
Einstein: A Biography by Jürgen Neffe and Shelley Frisch. Which was a great book and having have read a handful of Einstein bios in high school it left me with more questions about him and Hoover, so I had to get this book I am reading now.

A little note here. Horse Girl's teacher is making noices about holding Horse Girl back next year and I have already decided I am not going to allow it for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that when I was her age I was like her. I could sort of maybe read depending on your defintion of reading. It didn't really click until I was 8 or 9 years old. (Horse Girl turns 8 this month.) So for me fast forward 30 years and here I am reading Einstein bios with no problem. I don't read fast, but I read and comprehend which is the most important part. So I really believe Horse Girl will figure things out and be fine just because of my history. That doesn't mean that Fly Guy and I are just sitting back and waiting, we work with her and her teachers work with her and she works hard at every thing she does. I know in my heart that she will be fine with time. I think sometimes it is harder for people who haven't been there, done that and bought several t-shirts, get too tied up with the here and now and don't look down the line.

There isn't a better bio to read then a good Einstein bio when you want to feel like a dyslexic can do anything. ;-) Dyslexics just see the world a different way. Which is why I don't like being told I "suffer" from dyslexia....I don't suffer I see things different then other people, which has bad parts to it and it has good parts. Einsein is one of those people who took the good parts and ran with them. Hmmmm.....a peace loving, socialist, dyslexic who becomes the world's most famous scientist, no wonder he is one of a handful of people who I would view as "my hero."

1 comment:

Christina said...

Well, now you have me wanting to add an Einstein bio to my Goodreads list! I love the way you described him.