I have just finished a book called With Malice Toward None, The Life of Abraham Lincoln. A very biased account to be sure, but I've come to expect that from whatever I read nowadays. It shows Lincoln in a favorable light, but it does a good job of presenting history during his life. I didn't learn much about Lincoln, for obvious reasons, but I was able to get through it because there were a lot of other things presented that I knew nothing about, presented in such a way that made it interesting. Now that I think about it, wondering what it was that kept my interest, was that I already knew his wife was probably not in her right mind, and it was interesting to see the attempt by the author to talk about her without disparaging remarks. There are facts about his wife that would strongly suggest she was a little off her rocker, and he deftly sidesteps the issue by relaying these without comment. Makes me want to look for a book that doesn't look to please the PC police.

That aside, I started two others. Men in Black, about the supreme court, and Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror. These will both be interesting because I don't know if I'll be able to make it through the first, and the other tells of things I never knew anything about; the barbary pirates. It is interesting that these people were Muslims that held the world hostage by extorting money and goods in exchange for safe passage in the Mediterranean.

The other one, Men in Black, I don't know if I'll be able to get through it because it is extremely biased. It starts off itemizing less than desirable characteristics of justices in history that the author doesn't like. That is just the introduction. My wife bought if for me for xmas, she says she knows I like to expose myself to both sides of any issue. I know this book will be hard though, because the author is vehemently opposed to abortion, among other things, and uses these ideas as proof that we have to put up with 'activist judges'. After only a few pages one would get the impression this guy thinks we would be much better off without a judicial branch. Just another example of someone that thinks they have all the right answers, and if only everyone thought like he did the world be a Utopian paradise.

Other than that, this holiday season was a bust. I had to work, which was no big deal, but I wasn't able to get a lot done at work, studying Spanish and anatomy that is, because I was feeling very bad. That is putting it mildly, I was, and still am, really fucked up. Not so much that I can't function, although the tasks assigned on the weekend aren't very mentally challenging, but enough so that I didn't feel like concentrating on anything important, and still don't.

Not that there is anything important to be done, but I still need to straighten up the garage, and the back yard could stand to be finished. I was able to clean off the desk around the computer, most of it anyway, and get some laundry done. I need lots of naps though, this cold is really kicking my ass. Well, I guess I could say it was kicking my ass if I were left dizzy, but I'm not straining myself enough to give me that light headed feeling. I do need to hang some decorative plates in the kitchen, but I don't know if I should do that because it involves standing on the counters in the kitchen, and that could be detrimental to my health in my present state.