Malcolm & A Milkshake—A Life Of Reinvention

This evening I enjoyed a milkshake at a local diner while reading Malcolm X–A Life Of Reinvention by Manning Marable.

What could more All-American than Malcolm X and a milkshake?

This book was a finalist for the most recent Pulitzer Prize  for biography or autobiography.

Here is the review of this book from The New York Times.

From the Times review—

“As the book reveals, the F.B.I. struggled with how to deal with Malcolm — i.e., how to discredit him — because he was so disciplined, so law-­abiding and too smart to actually create the violence that would allow him to be arrested. Marable shows us Malcolm in Africa, watched by the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and points out “the David-versus-Goliath dimension”: “Malcolm had few resources and was traveling without bodyguards, yet the attorney general and the F.B.I. director were so fearful of what he alone might accomplish that they searched for any plausible grounds to arrest and pros­ecute him upon his return.” Of course, they found nothing. Similarly, an exhaustive biographer combing through Malcolm’s days pulls away the curtain to show us the entirety of his life, and the emperor remains clothed. He has some failings, but Malcolm is still the empowering figure his autobiography showed us he was.”

Here is my Martin Luther King Reading & Reference List. It is the best such resource on the web.

Here is some history of milkshakes.

Everyday is a great day to learn something new about what may seem to be a familiar subject.

And everyday is a great day for a milkshake.

Though I would suggest the daily reading much more than I would suggest the daily milkshake.

Texas Progressive Alliance Round-Up—The Six Flags Of Texas

Here is the weekly posting of the Texas Progressive Alliance round-up. The TPA is a confederation of the best political bloggers in Texas. TPA members are citizen-bloggers working for a better Texas.

(Above–The Six Flags of Texas. You can find our more about these flags and about everything Texas from the Texas State Historical Society. The TSHS publishes The Texas Almanac every two years. In additon to the online resources the Almanac provides, I buy each new edition of the print version.)

Every Texan and every American has the ability to attend a public meeting, attend or organize a protest, write or call an elected official, talk to friends and family, start a blog, donate money, write a letter to the editor, volunteer for candidates and causes, engage in acts of civil disobedience, and to run for public office.

The work of freedom and justice is up to each of us.

Here is the round-up—

Off the Kuff notes that we are now up to six school finance lawsuits.

BossKitty at TruthHugger sings back to the choir; you know, that small loud minority willing to sacrifice everybody else to satisfy their selfish rhetoric. Is crazy weather really a liberal conspiracy?