I used to do drugs, I still do, but I used to, too.*

I've added some new links today over there on the left-hand side of your screen.

Everyone should know Howard Zinn. Or at least everyone should read his stuff. Remember history class in high school? All you got to read was half the story, and it's usually from a biased perspective. What Zinn does is give you history without the bias from more fair perspectives. You don't know shit about the history of this country until you've read "The People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present" by Howard Zinn. It will floor you. Seriously. Not only is he a college professor who's taught history his whole life, but he was there in the beginning of what is now referred to as "The Movement." That would be the Civil Rights Movement. I capitalize that because it's a serious piece of our history and many of us don't know much of anything about it. He helped to influence several college students to get involved and demonstrate and stage protests in the south. Zinn was also involved in the leaking of the Pentagon Papers to the press. If it weren't for Zinn, I wouldn't know about this, but the Pentagon Papers more or less proved that the president of the United States is not infallible, and that the US Government was in Vietnam under false pretenses. In short, they lied to the public about the reasons behind the Vietnam War. Zinn also chronicled the labor movement in this country with incredible detail. It's shocking, too, that much of that history is hard to find. You can find the point of view of the factory owners, but it wasn't until a few years ago that information started coming to light from the worker's perspective. This is because in the beginning (in this country), labor unions were seen as being one step away from Socialism. And that was a bad thing. So, much of the history has been suppressed. All I'm trying to say here is that anyone who appreciates non-fiction books that pull you in because they're so interesting should be reading Howard Zinn. Anyone who wants to know the real history of this country should read Howard Zinn.

One of the other new links is for McSweeney's. I'm still a little unclear as to what this is, but I like it. It seems to be the online version of a quarterly literary publication. I think. They might also be a publisher, I'm not sure. I know that the authors Dave Eggers and Sarah Vowel are involved, especially Eggers. Some days there's new stuff, some days there isn't. There are some regular features like poems and lists. The lists are my favorite part, I think. It seems like they don't accept public submissions, so it's a specific short list of authors who are involved. An example of a recent list is "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations," by Martin Bell. This shit is so funny. It's basically a list of made-up quotations from Bartlett himself (whose namesake book of Familiar Quotations is well known). Example: "... and I said, 'Yeah, and you can "quote" me on it!' Ha, ha!" I love this stuff.

*Mitch Hedberg, RIP