CD Giveaway - 33Miles, "One Life"
Ends Aug 4, 2010
The country-pop sound established in their eponymous debut is a mainstay for this album as well, and even adds a little more southern flavor. |
CD Giveaway - Phil Wickham, "Cannons"
Ends Aug 3, 2010
With an opening shot that hits the sonic pinnacle, this collection of spiritual Brit pop/rock is heavily influenced by Keane, Travis, Coldplay, and U2. |
DVD Giveaway: Kick-Ass
Ends Aug 1, 2010
Get ready to have your ass kicked when this DVD of awesomeness releases to the home entertainment market. |
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Book Review: The Wicked History of the World
by R.J. Carter
Published: August 31, 2006
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Publication Date: September 1, 2006
Publisher: Scholastic
Author:
· Terry Deary
· Martin Brown
Grade: D+
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Winston Churchill once said that he expected history to look kindly upon him, for he intended to write it. Or, to put it in the vernacular that folks are most familiar with, "History is written by the winners."
In the case of Terry Deary and Martin Brown, we have the opposite side of the coin -- history written by the losers.
The Wicked History of the World touts itself as "history with the nasty bits left in." And a nasty bit of history it is, including chapters of killing, maiming, torturing -- and by some of history's most notable figures. Gone is Christopher Columbus, discoverer of America. Welcome Christopher Columbus, the slaver of Arawakan Indians who chopped off their noses and ears. Of course, many of those presented as evil wankers are those we already know about -- Adolph Hitler, for example. And the terrible times of history where workers -- including children -- worked long hours in dangerous jobs.
Where Deary and Brown excel, however, is in their consistent jabs at Christianity, starting early in the book with a brief examination at the cruelty of the Ten Commandments, leading into a fact-filled comic strip panel on the plagues of Egypt:
Moses led the Hebrews to freedom when God made a path through the 'Red' Sea... But actually it was the REED Sea -- a shallow lake. An east wind made a dry path for them to cross. And the wind dropped as the Egyptians chased the Hebrews -- it drowned them.
Which means, of course, that not only are we to believe the Hebrews walked upright in a wind strong enough to clear a dry path, but that the entire Egyptian army could be drowned in a shallow pond. (And we also learn that, whether in English or Hebrew, the words 'red' and 'reed' are differentiated only by a single repeating letter -- put that in your Torah and smoke it!)
The anti-Church snark continues throughout. In a paragraph about a particularly cruel sport involving betting on how many rats a terrier dog could kill in a minute, Deary footnotes "In Ireland a farmer complained that this 'sport' was really popular among the country's priests." Deary later devotes entire chapters to "Cruel Christians". And, of course, who could forget the Crusades?
Adolf Hitler massacred six million Jews in the 1940s, but he didn't start the idea. Christians had been killing Jews for over a thousand years before. (One of their excuses was that the Jews had killed Jesus -- they liked to forget Jesus was a Jew.)
Before the Crusaders decided to kill the enemies of Christ in Palestine they tackled their own home towns. (It was easier killing helpless Jewish families in Europe than Muslim warriors in Palestine.) Albert of Aix saw a massacre take place in Germany. His report, written in 1125, is still chilling.
The book opens and closes with a cartoon of a classroom, which ends with the class learning that they need to say, "Never again," and that, if they're not to repeat history, they must never be like the terrible, awful people they've just read about. What the book doesn't have, however, is corroborative data, no bibliography. What it lacks, though, it makes up in sarcasm and snarky editorialization. Marketed towards the 9 to 12 age bracket, parents are cautioned to go over this book before turning their kids loose on it.
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