What Price Knowledge?

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

This morning while reading some lefty blog (probably Huffington Post) I came across a review of a tell-all book on the Bush family. I'm not much into gossip, especially gossip about morons, but the author of this blog post was so enthusiastic on the subject of Family of Secrets by Russ Baker that I decided to investigate further.

He talked about Baker's examination of Senator Prescott Bush's dalliance with Hitler's Nazi Party, a topic of which I already had a rudimentary knowledge, and, of course, the tragic presidency (tragic for the nation) of our current President - Prescott's grandson. But what really caught my interest was an implied link between George H.W. Bush (Bush 41) and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. One of my life goals, you see, is to solve the mystery of the Kennedy assassination. I have a decent library on the topic, and one of these days I will get around to it.

Ten years ago I sat in Jesse Auditorium at the University of Missouri one evening listening to Oliver Stone peddling a book. When he finished his talk, he opened the floor to questions, and one of the first out of the chute was an inquiry about some derogatory remarks that the older President Bush had made about Stone regarding his film, JFK. Stone became livid at the question and went totally off-script in a rabid denunciation of the Bush family in general and Pappy Bush in particular. Okay, I thought, that's interesting. (I've seen the movie, JFK, several times and even have a copy of the script, but I never came across any reference to the Bushes. So what got to Bush Sr. about the movie, and what got to Stone about Bush Sr.?)

Because I want to serve my country by clearing up the assassination mess, and because I believe the Bush family has crippled this great nation to the point that my grandchildren will grow up buried under debt and humiliation lavished upon us by these criminal bozos, I wanted to know more about Family of Secrets.

First stop: Amazon.com. The book was priced at $19.80, with free shipping if my order totaled $25 or more. Amazon had seven customer reviews. Each review was thorough and intelligently written, and each gave the book five stars - the highest rating. My instincts, it appeared, were good.

Second stop: Barnesandnoble.com. The customer ratings averaged 4.5 stars. Barnes and Noble were prouder of their copies than Amazon, with a sale price of $24 each.

But I really wasn't in the mood to wait, so this evening I pulled into the Barnes and Noble that is across the street from where I live. I have their customer card which is good for 10 percent off, and I had a coupon good for an additional 15 percent. Employing my basic math skills, I realized that 25% off of $24 would be a sweet $18, even less than Amazon - and I could take it right home! Imagine my puzzlement when I picked up a copy of the book and found that it was a pricey thirty dollars! I marched right up to the counter, as old farts are prone to do, and told the man that I could get the same book from their company over the Internet for $24. Yeah, he replied, we can't compete with our Internet price.

Say what!

Then I told him that I could get the same book from Amazon for $19.80 - and he told me to have a nice day!

So I guess I will - maybe tomorrow!