I like Thom Paine and "Common Sense" comes down to me as a book my grandfa'r, who i barely remember, cause he died in '72, referenced often. That's what my mama tells me. So I's comin through Chicago, on my way home from pickin up a good girlfriend 'a' mine up in Madison, a few years back, and decided to look around for used book stores. I see a Powells(book store) in the yellow pages and I know Powells from my time in Portland. That's where I fist discovered Tom Robbins, "Another Roadside Attraction", up in Portland, back in the day. Great read , BTW. And 'a' course I, havin been given a good dose of identification with the Irish struggle, as a child have read "Trinity", you know, and I remember how Connor Larkin, the hero of the story, quotes Thom Paine as he defends his so-called 'treasonous' actions to the English magistrate. Another great read. So...to cut to the chase, I drive down through the south side and eventually come to Powells Books, which was near the university of Chicago. I come into the place and first off ask the man behind the counter if they're affiliated with the Powells out in OR. He told me they were originally owned by the same family, but no longer. Anyway I picked up a nice hard back copy of "Collected Writings" by Thomas Paine there and finally read "Common Sense" for the first time a few years ago. What I'm tryin to say is that while I have an immense amount of respect for Paine, the revolutionary writer, who's words unleashed one nation from the bonds of another, and in so doing taught us all, about human dignity, I'm not sure that "society in every state is a blessing".
Yeah, I'm extremely skeptical of that statement...
I also got "Wolfe Tone, The Prophet of Irish Independence" which was a hard and scholarly read, but very interesting, that day, and some other books on Irish history and "the Transcendentalists" by Perry Miller, which contains all kinds of phenomenal writing.
Thom Paine though, ... ::cheers:: ...Yeah, great revolutionary... :skull:
