... Squirrel! Yup, Distractions ..

So on 6/28 I have saved an uncompleted draft of the review on "The Mom Factor" - 'The American-ExpressMom" and I have not touched it since ... we had the 6/30 - 7/6 Lake-house Rental and more recently a 7/13 Nerve-block procedure that has delayed my getting back to the book.

I am on page 196 of "The Mom Factor" for this review . and the last page of the main section of the book is page 218. Beyond this, the last two sections of the book include "For Women Only" (and I can't read that) and "For Men Only" (and I did read that).

I hope to get to complete "The American Express Mom" chapter yet today .. and companion chapter to that type of mom called "Leaving Home the Right Way" yet this week so this review will be complete.

Next up is "From Union to Empire" .. however, I took the opportunity to quickly read two other smaller books this week, "The Real Thomas Paine" (I am 3% into this book) and the 50 page book "Understanding Abe Lincoln's First Shot" (I am 85% into this book). Both of these unpack some inconvenient truths about the American Revolutionary War and the start of the so-called American Civil War.

Factoids:

1. In the book "Real Thomas Paine" is is apparent that Tom Paine was indeed the founding father of a federation of American colonies (admitted later by John Adams) and the Founding Fathers were actually founding followers (George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, etc)
2. In the book "Understanding Abe Lincoln's First Shot" I learned that Lincoln used George Washington's reasoning for putting down the Whiskey Rebellion (the 28% tax on whiskey which was actually the currency of choice in backwoods America at the time) by referring to Washington's 1794 proclamation that references the 1792 Act for Calling out the Militia - Section 2 and his own reasoning for putting down the southern "rebellion". As a lawyer he knew that secession was legal (in fact he was FOR that back in 1840s when the Mexican War broke out) and therefore took extreme care to never acknowledge the seven (and eventually the eleven) states that seceded .. which is why he never gave audience to the peace negotiators before the war. As he issued his call for 75,000 militia troops from the states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri all said NO!) he delayed calling up congress for 11 weeks by targeting a July 4th Congress assembly .. knowing that the 90-day militia contracts would be up by August 4th .. making Congress move fast on joining him in his war effort..
3. Also in the book "Understanding Abe Lincoln's First Shot" I learned that Lincoln learned about the having the enemy taking the "first shot" during his only term in the House of Representatives when a minor military skirmish in Texas led to the nation embracing a huge war against Mexico immediately. In this situation it was Lincoln that desired to defuse the drive toward war wanting to know the exact spot this alleged incident took place. Having been ridiculed and driven out of office for this stance he learned the power of maneuvering the enemy into taking the first shot (which also helped FDR do the same with Japan 100 years after this working with Mexico).