No longer a doormat!

For the longest time I've used this blogger page as a quick doorstop on the way to Hawaii Book Blog (for anyone who happens to check my profile).  I primarily signed up to Blogger so that I could more easily follow and comment on various blogs that were on here and hopefully interest a few people to check out Hawaii Book Blog (forever now known as HBB). 

Recently, I've been doing a lot of Hawaiiana reading for HBB.  Admittedly, prior to blogging about Hawaiian books, I must admit that my knowledge of this specific niche was very vague and scattered.  It's been a great experience for me to slowly immerse myself in the literature of the Islands, and learn even more about the culture of the people and locations where I grew up.  However, this isn't my only interest.  One of my personal loves is History.  This is one reason I can attach myself to Hawaii books so easily, as Hawai'i has a wonderful history dating back to the settling of the islands by Polynesians, through the missionary period, the tragic overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Territory Days and modern Statehood.  But I am especially fond of American History, and while I'm not trying to do anything specific with that here, I thought it might be nice (primarily for myself) to catalogue my journey through learning more and more about U.S. History. 

So, I will be using "Speaking Ill of the Emperor" to talk about the books I am reading; any interesting web sites I come across; wild tangents from books that lead me to more books, more literature or more websites; any rare instances of travel where I get to experience American history firsthand; random musings; and really anything else that comes to fruition.  What brought this on, you may ask?  Well, I was reading one of my Presidents books (one which I'll cite later when I have it with me), and glancing through one of the more lesser known Presidents, I came across a timeline of events which had a bunch of interesting "wars," skirmishes and other political battles that I hadn't retained or never heard of--and I wanted to learn more about them.  There's so much out there that I want to learn about, but a lot of times I tend to forget them, or I read something and then lose it.  This blog ideally will be a way for me to put all of my thoughts together, all of my notes, my learning, and potential education into one place where I can easily reference it with the proper labels, a quick search, and just to keep a diary of my progress in the education of this, the greatest country on God's green Earth.