Seems a great day for new posts. It's either that or tackle a whole lot of nasty work.

I'm just about to complete my Associate's Degree with the University of Phoenix and my giant list of disparate college credits was recently evaluated. It seems I had everything I needed but 3 social science credits. I found an online history course with a local community college that I started last week. The course deals with American History up through the 1800's and it's been an eye-opener. The text I had to buy and am a few chapters into is entitled "The American People - Creating a Nation and a Society" by Nash, Jeffrey, Howe....etc.

The main shock to me is how censored my early history education was. What I vaguely remember in grade school through high school about early American history was how sterling our original discoverers and founders were. Sheesh, you think the Middle East is bad and that Islam is a violent religion? Man, they had nothing on the early settlers of this great country. The atrocities performed on all sorts of humans ranging from the Natives, the early black slaves, the white indentured servants, and the witches of Salem, pale in comparison to some of the stuff we're seeing today. The religious fighting and terror that went on was reminiscent of the stuff we're seeing today with the Shiites and Sunnis.

Now, this is not a justification at all to what's going on today but I think it's theraputic for me to be reminded of just how brutal any society can be no matter what its origins. I always knew I was getting a glossed-over version of our heritage in school but this class is really pounding that in.

I can't wait to get into the chapters dealing with the Revolutionary War and the chiseling of the Constitution now. This book pulls no punches and it'll be interesting to see how they deal with complexities of the time.