Tom McMahon

Two Books Titled What's The Difference?: So What's The Difference?

 

Left: What's The Difference? by Marc Tyler Nobleman
Right: What's The Difference? by Mental Floss

Marc Tyler Nobleman will give you the answer.

The Case and Trial of Curt Flood vs Major League Baseball

The Case and Trial of Curt Flood vs Major League Baseball

The summary:

On October 8, 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals traded center fielder Curt Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies. At the time of the trade, Flood was thirty-one years old, at the top of his game and in the prime of his life. In professional baseball, trades are not uncommon. What was different about this trade was that Curtis Charles Flood refused to recognize the "right" of the Cardinals to trade him to another team without his consent. In doing so, Flood challenged a practice that was designed and enforced by the professional baseball club owners for over eighty years- a practice frequently referred to as the "reserve system". It was the late 1960s – a decade of great racial tension and unrest; the Vietnam War was dividing the country; and now Curt Flood, a black man, was challenging the lily-white major league baseball establishment.

On January 16, 1970, Curt Flood filed suit in the Federal District Court in New York against major league baseball alleging that baseball’s reserve system violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and Flood’s rights under federal law. Flood argued that once he signed a contract (in his case, when he was eighteen years old), he was owned by "his team" for life and that the reserve system was tantamount to slavery.

Flood’s decision to challenge major league baseball cost him his baseball career and much more. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of Flood’s claims and ruling (in 1972) that professional baseball was exempt from federal antitrust regulation, professional baseball players had "free agency" by 1975.

This is the story of Curt Flood’s case and trial against major league baseball and its aftermath.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

From the review over at the American Presidents Blog:

In this alternate history, Lincoln becomes at an early age a vampire hunter and this shapes his entire life including his later political career. The American frontier is full of vampires up to no good and as Lincoln travels he moves further up the ranks of those fighting the vampire menace.

Eventually, Lincoln learns that slavery is an institution that vampires use to keep an easy source of human victims. The entire southern system is based on patronage from vampires. The decision to run for president and the ensuing American Civil War follow from this fact. I don't want to give anything away but I did not see the ending coming and it was very satisfying. (Did you know that John Wilkes Booth was a vampire?)

Seth Grahame-Smith is a good author and he paces the book well. His writing is interesting and it was hard to put the book down until I finished.

Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich

Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich

The blurb:

Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich is a detailed, heavily illustrated reference book containing relevant historical exposition on many of the personal, organizational and commemorative spoons of the 3rd Reich period from 1933 to 1945. These spoons, unlike most other collectibles from this period, were actually owned and used daily by the people and organizations of those times. The book includes many spoon types, for example: Hitler’s personal silverware, Red Cross, SS, the U-47 etc. With over 200 photos / graphics and over 19,000 words of text, the book extensively explores the relevant historical highlights which in turn illuminate this unique period in history as reflected by the spoons. These spoons are history that you can hold in your hand and were once in the hands of the German history makers of the 3rd Reich era. As the years pass, the 3rd Reich era will move from the monster of history to just plain history as did the Napoleonic era and like Napoleon collectibles, there is increasing interest in acquiring 3rd Reich collectibles, although understandably relatively modest in our lifetime. Thus, this book should be of interest to the collector and educational for the casual reader of history.

Another one where adding commentary would be like dousing a fine steak with ketchup.

This Book Is The Property Of The Colored High School Library Of The City Of Lynchburg

This Book Is The Property Of The Colored High School Library Of The City Of Lynchburg

An old bookplate from the days of segregation.

Some General Guidelines For Cleaning Out Your Library

Excerpt from Francine Prose:

• Unless you are an Egyptologist, you only need one, at most two, enormous coffee table books on the Art of the Pharaohs.
• If a country, like Czechoslovakia, no longer exists, it’s unlikely that you’ll want to take the travel guide along with you when you go.
• If the reproductions in an art book are so fuzzy and blurred that you can’t tell the work of the Impressionists from that of the Pointillists, or even from the Surrealists, get rid of it.
• Ask yourself the following hard question and answer honestly: If I live to be 100, will I read this book again?

(via Grow-A-Brain)

Wikipock: Brings The Full Text Content Of Wikipedia To Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Android And Symbian Mobile Phones

Wikipock: Brings The Full Text Content Of Wikipedia To Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Android And Symbian Mobile Phones

• And it's coming soon for iPhone
• About 4GB worth of text
• No photos
• $10 or $15, depending on whether you want free updates
• You can get it on an 8GB microSD card for an extra $15, which is cost
• Check out the reviews here
• I got it for my new Windows Mobile phone and it's pretty neat.

Comic Reader Mobi: The Comic Book Reader Specially Designed for Cell Phones

 

Comic Reader Mobi: The Comic Book Reader Specially Designed for Cell Phones

The Blurb:

"I'd love to read comics on my phone But the screen is way too small"

But wait! It's big enough to look at pictures,watch movies, and even play games! So whats wrong with comics?

You can see all the art on the page without any problems. You can even see the whole layout and all the action without any difficulties.

Its not the comics that are too small, its the TEXT thats too hard to read!

But thanks to Comic Reader Mobi, thats no longer a problem!

Simply tap on the text and watch it pop out to a readable size!

Its simple, its intuitive, and now you can finally read comics anywhere you want! Unlike other solutions, Comic Reader Mobi works on standard CBR,CBZ,RAR and ZIP files. No need for propreitary formats, or specially redesigned comics!

How To Get A Genuine Sony E-Book Reader for About $150

Sony Reader PRS-505 and the new Sony Reader Pocket (PRS-300)

In most cases the PRS-505 will cost you around $300 on eBay, whereas you can find the new PRS-300 going for about $200 at various retailers. Either one would make a great gift, for yourself or someone else. In addition to the larger display, the PRS-505 has a few more features that explain the $100 price premium. As usual, Wikipedia tells all.

The Heretofore Obsolete PRS-500

The older PRS-500 is a 6-inch display like the PRS-505, but since it doesn't read the new industry-standard epub file format you can usually find them for about $150 on eBay. But wait! Sony just announced a free firmware upgrade that will make your PRS-500 capable of reading the new epub format. So if you'r nimble and willing to deal with a bit of a wait, you can get yourself a nice little deal.

Sarah Palin's Walmart Strategy

Going Rogue by Sarah Palin

From J. Robert Smith

What's notable about Sarah Palin's book tour, which starts midweek, is where she's not going. She's not going to L.A. or New York, Boston or San Francisco. She's going smack-dab to the middle of the country. Fly-over country, liberals call it. And it's a shrewd move, not only in selling books, but positioning herself for a presidential run in 2012 if she chooses that path.

It's a strategy right out of the late Sam Walton's playbook: go where there's demand and the competition ain't. Walton, who could have run and won political campaigns, built Walmart into the behemoth it is today by opening his discount stores in small towns in the heartland, towns that the eight-hundred pound gorilla K-Mart ignored.

Walton conquered the discount retail category from the heartland out. He didn't so much clobber K-Mart as steal a march on it. Palin may just prove that a heartland strategy does more than sell blenders and books. It may be the foundation for winning a national election.