Howard Zinn Dies

Howard Zinn, Author of 'People's History of the United States' Died at 87

The first real feeling of loss of an admired soul in my life. Not merely an intellectual, decked out in isolation and abstract-only concern, but a self-subordinating aggressor against the tides of injustice. A paradigm. You will be missed.


"From the start, my teaching was infused with my own history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted more than 'objectivity'; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble." -- Autobiography, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

Megalophobia: Fear of Large Objects

Concealment

The thoughts of daily living so subtly smother, and in the very midst of the death of soul there comes a single thought or perception, always trivial (the thought of a good nap, the smell of leather, the sight of wind against grass), which like a punctured sheet of foil that hides a window that bursts forth the sun brings back (the blessed return) the indestructible feeling that everything is fine and flawlessly dandy.

No, happiness is neither created nor destroyed, dear ones, but it sure as hell can be muffled up.