Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath

I have been thinking about John Steinbeck and his writing. I like Steinbeck. One of the questions I ask everyone who confesses to reading is “Have you read The Winter of Our Discontent ?” No one reads it. I have met two people in my entire life who have read it and one of them was in Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. And I don't understand that. It's entertaining. It's funny. It's readable and you can justify the time you spend on it.

It seems like everyone gets the Steinbeck kicked out of them at an early age. No one ever gets past The Grapes of Wrath. I was lucky that the first Steinbeck I ever read was Travels with Charley. If I had started out with The Grapes of Wrath I would never had picked up another thing by him. (If you have ever seen the John Ford movie adaptation staring Henry Fonda then you need to be sure and see the SCTV version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6O5xCRNx4g )

My son is in high school. One of the summer reading choices is, you guessed it, The Grapes of Wrath. I don't understand why they would force that book on anyone. They should be reading something they would enjoy. No wonder all he does is play Call of Duty.

You can find my review of The Winter of Our Discontent at http://georgewparkertalkingbookreviews.blogspot.com/.

George W. Parker

B. Traven and social media

The creative person should have no other biography than his works. B. Traven

How is that working for him in today's social media environment?

• B. Traven has an official website – http://www.btraven.com/english/about.html.
• Here is his Facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/pages/B-Traven/112166092128826.
• This is the Twitter page - https://twitter.com/#!/btraven (Here he is in the guise of Kenneth Sean Glade.)
• How about the blog? - http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/author/b-traven/

Today B. Traven's publisher would be working to own and manage all the above web pages to consolidate and and control the marketing of his “brand.” Speaking to us, the buying public, in a single voice.

Traven's various “beards” (aka agents) would probably have their own Internet platforms and plaster us with all kinds of insipid Tweets and posts. (Well, they are just “beards,” not B. Traven.)

The one thing that you can be sure of is B. Traven would be using a Tor browser.

George W. Parker

I am not a Travenologist. What I know about B. Traven you can find here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._Traven and here - http://www.btraven.com/english/about.html. I must admit that I do agree with the opening quote.

Naivety

Here are a couple of things I hope I never come to disbelieve: “Cheaters never win, winners never cheat.,” and “Honesty is the best policy.” I realize these are a little old fashion but I still like them.

Another old fashion idea is that it is against the law to buy votes in the United States. It is against the law to buy them directly. To be successful at it you have to use a third party money laundering device. And the safest and most successful washing machine available is the US Government.

Here are a couple of recent examples , in my opinion, of vote buying. (I don't mean that the following things are wrong in themselves, just that the driving purpose behind them is suspect.)

1. During a time of deflation Congress passed and the President signed a 3.6% benefit increase for Social Security recipients. (I realize that there are many legitimate reasons behind this increase. I also realize that this group of Americans are active voters.)
2. Just last week President Obama was touting, on campuses across the US, his fight for lower interest rates on student loans. (Again, I realize there are a great many good reasons for these lower interest rates. But was this really anything thing more than an attempt to buy votes?)

Vote buying via the Washington machine goes the other direction too. In a previous blog I talked about the immense spending on Capitol Hill by lobby groups. What is a PAC or Super PAC but a way to massage money to the people, Representatives and Senators and Presidential candidates, who enact monetary laws?

It would be naive to believe that this behavior is something new in Washington. But is it naive to believe that it can be minimized? Probably, but I do plan on holding onto the possibility.

George W. Parker