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Howard Zinn, �Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order�

Started November 27 � finished November 28, 2002; 124 pages. Posted 10 December 2002

Holy God, I�m practically done with the semester! Finally! Two of my five classes are now officially over and after tomorrow�s classes, all I have to do is wait for midterms.

My screenwriting instructor that I complained about back in September walked into my work the other day to do some shopping and went on and on about how he LOVED my final draft of the script, praising the writing and the changes I made in particular.

The funny thing is, I wasn�t willing to do any of the changes he originally demanded. Now I�m wondering what would have happened if I had? After all the praise was dished out, he invited me to take his playwriting course he was teaching next semester, saying he�d really like to keep working with me.

Yeah, like that�s going to happen.

I also just turned in the last bit of writing that I have to do this year for a grade. I worked on it late into the morning today, trying to make it just a little bit better, but I wasn�t getting anywhere. The paper was too technical and I didn�t have any access to Lexus/Nexus to find supplementary material.

I finally gave up at four a.m. resigned to know that while I had a pretty good paper, it was by no means spectacular. I was disappointed in myself, because the instructor worked really hard to make the class interesting and engaging, and writing a stellar paper is a way of conveying that his efforts were appreciated.

When I turned in my paper, I soon discovered that as mediocre as I thought mine was, there was no doubt that I put more work into it than at least 80 percent of the class. This was the same class that had the fellow senior who wrote the words �have tooken,� so I glanced at her final draft — and saw that she failed to �have tooken� the horrendous grammar out of her paper, despite all the marks I made on her first draft.

I was annoyed at that. After all, I put a lot of work into editing her paper, trying to make her not sound like a drunk six year-old. Then I thought, if I�m annoyed that she�s not bothering to fix things that I spent two hours trying to teach her, how does this poor professor feel after trying to teach these shitweasels for the last three and a half months, only to discover they�re just putting out minimal effort to pass the course?

This poor guy has only been teaching for about two years, and you can tell he wants to get people thinking. I hate to think that this is the reward he gets for his hard work, and I cringe when I think he�ll burn out eventually.

But whatever. I�m so close to being done! Whoo! Time to get back into the routine of getting a full night of sleep and not having to type into all hours of the night!

And so what do I do on this, the eve of freedom? I type these fucking book reviews at 2:30 in the morning.

This book was published before the release of A People�s History of the United States, and it reeks of the little-known university requirement that professors publish at least once a year. Zinn picked out Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas� 1968 dissertation on civil disobedience, and basically released what can be simply called a �Yeah, but...� book, picking apart statements from Fortas to refute.

Zinn though, commits a fallacy of his own by not reprinting Fortas� statements in full, giving a reader unfamiliar with Fortas� work (a reader such as myself) lack of proportion. It�s difficult to explain, because in order to do so properly I would have to include Zinn�s entire statement, along with Fortas, which I don�t have access to. So while I hate to do it, I am left with saying, �Yeah, but...� to �Zinn�s �Yeah, but.�

And that�s a lot of buts, yeah?


Rating: Worth library prices.

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