History or His Story ?

Hello Friends,
This book was a very interesting read and caused me to question the accuracy of much I had learned about early American history. It is difficult to figure out what really happened yesterday or last year let alone many years ago. At a peace rally in D.C. I saw a young woman march wearing nothing but paint from the waist up. "What a shame!", said a lady next me. "Thousand of people walking peacefully and respectfully and that is what will get into the papers." As someone said to me recently, "Stuff that goes right is not too newsworthy. It is when something goes wrong that it becomes of interest." We can get a very warped view of reality by listening to the news .... ESPECIALLY if we get it from just one or two sources.
For example - Palestinian children are killed at a rate much much higher than Israeli children. But the American press reports many more Israeli child deaths than it reports Palestinian. Might that just give us the wrong impression? Check it out for yourself. Try looking at http://www.ifamericansknew.org/ for one source. My opinions have changed in recent years and probably will shift some more after being in Palestine. I will look forward to opportunities to talk to groups upon my return. Please count me as just one more source of information not as an authority or necessarily even accurate. And even the history books are less than accurate. Large states (notably Texas and California) approve textbooks at the state level. If history is told in an unacceptable manner for one of those states, it will not sell there and a large chunk of the market is lost so why bother publishing that book. The choices of available textbooks nationwide are impacted by this situation. So, when a textbook finally gets to our students' hands, is it "history" or "his story"?
Peace, Fred