i got the kid a graphic adaptation of A People’s History of AMerican
Empire and opened it up to Zinn writing about reading Dickens and
getting pissed off as a kid. and then i was thinking about why it is
that A Christmas Carol is the only Dickens novel read in school.
Dickens was the most famous (though not my favorite) of the victorian
social justice writers. he was all about class war, evil rich men and
struggling poor people. A Christmas Carol makes it look like all you
need is for rich men to individually grow a conscience. his other
novels generally include some legal system mechanics to bring about
change, not individual contrition.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning