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| 4.13
| 113,669
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“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.” --HOWL, by Allen Ginsberg. You wanna know what I saw? I saw that the best writers of my father's generation destroyed themselves by madness, starving hysterical and naked, dragging themselves all across the fruited plains jonesing for the next drug fix, whoring, boozing, stoned and stoning, shooting up and swallowing down, anything for another rush of drugs of sex of wine, women, and song, only their song was spoken, the greatest poetry of a hundred years, beautiful words beautifully pressed into service to celebrate the worst decisions a gang of twenty-year-old hoodlums could ever make. To be more straightforward, to write it straight, more matter with less art--it saddens me that the best, most celebrated writers of the last hundred years devoted their words—and their lives—to the most destructive impulses known to man, with the exception of war. Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, and the others were men of peace, if you can call it that. Selfish, drug-addled, drunk, high, wasted, narcissistic takers (never givers) who coupled together beautiful, rhythmic strings of words like jewel-bedecked cars on America’s loveliest logos locomotive, the train set off on a journey through the foulest sewers of human life, an underground cesspool flowing with the worst of the worst of us. While reading Ginsberg's poetry, I could not but think of Kerouac's autobiographical novel, ON THE ROAD. Such amazing wordsmithing. Such a horrible story. I've read it several times. I'll read it several times more. The words are gorgeous. The story is a slow march through hell, wondering if these men can get any worse. ...more |
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| 0316564745
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You should read this book for a useful bit of education about some of the darkest aspects of twentieth-century American history. Remember Tom Brokaw's
You should read this book for a useful bit of education about some of the darkest aspects of twentieth-century American history. Remember Tom Brokaw's book, THE GREATEST GENERATION? No one will be using that term after reading this book. I have read better books by Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ralph Ellison, and W.E.B. DuBois. The best recent book in a slightly similar vein may be Casey Cep’s FURIOUS HOURS: MURDER, FRAUD, AND THE LAST TRIAL OF HARPER LEE. That is one amazing true-crime novel. But if you’re interested in a book by a white historian researching a lynching that happened while her grandfather was the sheriff, this is the one. I have mixed emotions about this book. First the things I don’t like: (I’m sorry if this seems like a lot. It is not. And in the end, I find the book worth reading IN SPITE of these things): Though the author is a professor of history, her default tone is blame, never neutrality. All whites are guilty of pretty much everything, and she is guilty of a lynching her grandfather participated in before she was born. White guilt flows from the author’s bone marrow, impacting every aspect of this book, right down to word choice and capitalization rules. She does not write “slaves,” but “enslaved peoples,” not “slave owners,” but “enslavers,” not “freed slaves,” but “formerly enslaved peoples.” She capitalizes “Black” when referring to race, but does not capitalize “white” when referring to race, creating oddities like this sentence: “Like most rural store owners, white and Black, Windham probably sold food…” (p91). Hale assumes the worst about everyone involved. Strike that. She assumes the worst about every white (lowercase) person involved. Including her own family members. On page 36 she quotes the newspaper’s use of dialect. A black man who learned to read late in life was proud of himself: “Gwinter git one of dem Ph.D’s, if dey don’t watch out.” Hale comments: “Casting the older Black man’s speech in a demeaning dialect, the paper urged its readers to laugh at his presumptions even as they celebrated his achievement.” Hale is making an assumption, speculating on the motives of journalists long dead. Perhaps she is right. But I prefer a scholar who recognizes and admits when she is making an assumption. She could add the word “apparently” or “probably.” She does not. Hale attributes racist motives to white people throughout the book. She not only speculates about their inner thoughts, but also draws conclusions about who knew what. “They knew what they were doing,” is a common sentence in this book. Everyone knew what they were doing. No one ever did a bad thing negligently or out of ignorance. Everyone did all bad things knowingly. Again—maybe they did. Or maybe they did not. On page 61, Hale assumes the woman handling draft registration is a racist. “The white registrar’s racism” kept her from looking into the eyes of Versie Johnson. The registrar listed his eye color as black, though Hale argues “no one actually has black irises.” Recording the man’s eye color as black makes the registrar a racist. Based on that, Hale then goes so far as to conclude the woman never looked the man in the eye, because if she had, she would know his irises were not black. If I can offer anecdotal evidence, I have seen what looked to be black eyes on people from many races, including my own. The registrar was not expected (I ASSUME) to take a magnifying glass to the man's iris. It is a quick glance. But Hale is making a leap on this point, and one which hurts her credibility. On page 153, Hale again speculates on the motives of journalists, arguing that when four or five men ran for office in 1970 and the newspaper published only the pictures of the two black candidates, the paper did it “so white voters would know they were black.” Maybe. Maybe not. Such certainty about these guesses should be beneath the writing of a scholar from the University of Virginia. Now for the things I did like: To begin, I’ll cut the writer some slack for some of the above. As all white folks know, and liberals know all-too-well, it is a tricky thing to enter the racism “space” and have conversations like this. You take a huge risk. I face these matters every semester teaching college students about things like the murder—the lynching—of Emmitt Till. To even talk about such things is to run the gauntlet. (Frankly, I fear someone I know will read this review and be offended, and that is the last thing I would want.) So after all that I complained about above, yes. I will cut her some slack. Hale and her team of a dozen editors (judging by the acknowledgments) are to be applauded for even attempting to write about such things. But I still think inconsistent capitalization rules and euphemistic or politically correct word choices are not necessary. And stating assumptions as though they were proven facts is allowing your scholarly writing to drift into the realm of memoir writing. Good scholarship is a more valuable contribution to history than is a memoir. I like learning, and I like books that make me think or provide insight into mysteries I have long wondered about. Here are five things I liked about this book: 1) I enjoyed the discussion of “Patronage relationships” between the races. Hale explains that blacks who had lived in a community for generations and possessed a certain skill at showing respect or deference to powerful whites could sometimes depend on those white people for help in times of trouble. I think this reality is already a known entity in the States, but I appreciated Hale providing a name for it. “Patronage relationships took a long time to build and often started when white and Black people were young.” 2) Similarly, I thought the discussion of the growth of private schools in the South was helpful. My father, born in Baton Rouge in 1935, told me long ago that when the US Supreme Court desegrated schools in Brown v. Board of Education, well-to-do white folks in Louisiana started sending their kids to private schools. Apparently the same was true in Mississippi, and schools like the Prentiss Christian School (Prentiss, Mississippi) owe their founding to the racist impulse to keep schools segregated. Because my own children attended a private school in Texas, I am not entirely comfortable with this history. It raises interesting questions about all the private schools in Houston--or any Southern state. But I believe the history is true, regardless of the integrated nature of Southern private schools today. To be honest, I even found Hale’s terminology useful: “Segregation Academies.” 3) An even more revealing truth is one that I found myself thinking about throughout the book: what role did racism play in the move of so many white southerners from the Democrat party to the Republican party? To her credit, Hale did not pound on readers with this point. She left me to discover it on my own, as I read the story of the struggle for voting rights. Having read three books in a row about Southern history, perhaps I was primed. But what I had never thought about was that some counties had more black people than white and with enough black voters to control all the Democrat primaries, the only way whites could continue to control things was to switch parties. Everything Hale said about the voting shift is contained in this one sentence: “Federal support for racial integration was the single most important factor in producing this shift.” 4) Given her definition of “lynching,” it makes sense that Hale considers the death of George Floyd a lynching by law enforcement, and the death of Ahmaud Arbery a lynching by vigilantes. This is worth considering against the historical context of racism and lynchings. 5) Finally, it was interesting to see Hale connect these dots: “‘Stand your ground’ and ‘open carry’ laws tempt citizens to act like law enforcement officers” i.e., to continue to participate in vigilante lynchings. To sum up: this book is not perfect, but worth reading. ...more |
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| 006063801X
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| 006063801X
| 4.03
| 30
| 1973
| Jan 15, 1973
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really liked it
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I read this book after it was loaned to me. I had not asked for it or otherwise shown any interest. A friend I had not seen in thirty years brought it
I read this book after it was loaned to me. I had not asked for it or otherwise shown any interest. A friend I had not seen in thirty years brought it along to lend me the first time we saw each other after decades apart. Richard Folse said, “this book made me think of you,” or something similar. I made a joke about my looking something like the 16th president. But actually, the book was a great choice. Strangely, I felt I could relate so deeply to the internal and external struggles Lincoln faced during the Civil War. In 2024, I face no such struggles, obviously. Any onlooker would assume my life floats along as gently as a toy boat. But like Lincoln, I struggle to reconcile disparate things. America is the “last best hope” on earth, filled with wonderful, sincere, devout people. Yet many of the most devout are taken in (or willingly give themselves over) to half-baked ideas being promoted on podcasts and TikTok videos. There are genuine, sincere people on both sides of our starkly divided country. There are God-fearing, praying, scripture-reading people on both sides. Yet, not only the extremists, but the rank-and-file on both sides consider anyone on the other side not merely a person with different opinions, but an enemy. I have been branded an enemy by old friends for questioning the leaders of my own political party. (Do we now live in a world in which we cannot ask questions?) People far too smart for that, far too educated, have chosen ignorance and at times, willful blindness. We are too smart to believe in a flat earth, and yet that and a dozen other hair-brained conspiracy theories are deluding and deceiving more and more of us every day. Suffice it to say, I found myself commiserating with Mr. Lincoln. This is a great book both for its content and its length. At 140 pages, it’s a quick read. It is well-written and scholarly (a combination difficult to find), with footnotes to sources on every page. The book builds a careful argument and moves toward a satisfying conclusion. I enjoyed the ride very much. I ought to read it again! Perhaps next time, I will buy my own copy. After all, because this was Richard’s book, I could not write in it, or circle things, and I felt handicapped. Reading is a different experience if I cannot use a pen! Some quotations: Nothing short of infinite wisdom could have devised and given to man this excellent and perfect moral code. -Lincoln on the Bible. *** “It is a momentous thing to be the instrument, under Providence, of the liberation of a race.” --Abraham Lincoln. *** Political idealists on all sides must face the reality: no one making political decisions can do so in the vacuum of idealism. We are not writing a utopian novel but trying to improve on the situation we have inherited, with all its fools and flaws. Lincoln understood that, as did the founders. Both are criticized for doing too little or waiting too long to decisively address slavery. But they faced complexities the Monday-morning historian in his easy-chair cannot imagine. Lincoln looked back at the nation's founding and understood that, in the words of Elton Trueblood: "An uncompromising stand against existent slavery in 1776 would have had no important effect except that of eliminating the possibility of creating a nation at all." Lincoln himself says when the nation began, "We had slavery among us. We could not get our constitution unless we permitted [slaveholding states] to remain in slavery. We could not secure the good we did secure if we grasped for more." Trueblood continues: "Choices are made not in some ideal or abstract situation, but in the realm of the real. The BEST, consequently, must always be the best UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, i.e., in light of actual alternatives." --Elton Trueblood, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THEOLOGIAN OF AMERICAN ANGUISH. *** No matter who wins, this will be my Facebook post for Wednesday, November 6, 2024 (the day after the election): “Though with our limited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe that he who made the world still governs it” --Abraham Lincoln, as quoted in ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THEOLOGIAN OF AMERICAN ANGUISH, by Elton Trueblood. *** "Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps." --Abraham Lincoln quoting Thomas Jefferson. From ABRAHAM LINCOLN, by Elton Trueblood. *** “Lincoln’s greatest interest in the Bible, and the spur to his steady reading of it, was the hope of finding light on the social and political problems which faced the nation. He was looking for light and by his perusal of the Scriptures he hoped he might find it … Though he did not admire preachers who used their pulpits for political pronouncements, he saw the Biblical faith as something which influenced his own decisions. God, he believed, was directing the social order through finite individuals who were His instruments.” --Elton Trueblood, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Theologian of American Anguish. *** THE MATURE LINCOLN WAS NOT THE SKEPTIC HE MAY HAVE BEEN IN HIS YOUTH. (Looks like he had no objection to "extra-Biblical revelation.") “That the Almighty does make use of human agencies, and directly intervenes in human affairs, is one of the plainest statements of the Bible. I have had so many evidences of his direction, so many instances when I have been controlled by some other power than my own will, that I cannot doubt that this power comes from above. I frequently see my way clear to a decision when I have no sufficient facts upon which to found it. But I cannot recall one instance in which I have followed my own judgment, founded upon such a decision, where the results were unsatisfactory, whereas, in almost every instance where I have yielded to the views of others, I have had occasion to regret it. I am satisfied that when the Almighty wants me to do or not to do a particular thing, he finds a way of letting me know it. I am confident that it is his design to restore the Union. He will do it in his own good time.” --ABRAHAM LINCOLN, by Elton Trueblood. ...more |
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| 0800740297
| 9780800740290
| 0800740297
| 4.49
| 1,445
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| Jun 14, 2022
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really liked it
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I was put off by the title, not gonna lie. The adverb is "fearlessly." But that's petty, and the book deserves better. This is a clean, clear book that I was put off by the title, not gonna lie. The adverb is "fearlessly." But that's petty, and the book deserves better. This is a clean, clear book that communicates well, without a lot of baggage. I suspect the best way to read it is with a journal and a pen--and perhaps a great deal of time set aside for reflection. Because what the author is after is a dialogue between the reader and God. And that is an amazing thing and not the sort of thing that can be rushed. I understood the book. I was entertained and amazed by many of the stories it contains. Were I to summarize the work, I would say that Winship argues we can be our False Self, our True Self, or our Real Self. Most of us go back and forth between them, according to which voices we are listening to. We have three choices: we can listen to our own voice, God's voice, or the enemy's voice. We listen too often to the enemy, and if not that, then to ourselves. We often allow God's voice to be drowned out by the other two. We also fail to hear from God when we feel unforgiven by Him, or when we are not forgiving others. Unforgiveness is the great barrier to hearing from God. I give most books three stars. I gave this one four because not only is it filled with excellent content, but it is a very quick read. As for what may be the juicy surprise at the center of this treat, no, I did NOT hear from God a unique name that He calls me and an identity that is all my own. Several in the book were given names by God, such as "Militant Peacemaker" (name given to the author who works in law enforcement), or "Fixer" (name given to a man God says will help others fix their eyes on Jesus. I received no such name, though I prayed and read the book as faithfully as I knew how (but with no journal and possibly with some distractions). I also must confess I did not fully expect to hear from God. The thing is, God speaks to me often. He knows that I am listening. But twenty years ago when I read the PRAYER OF JABEZ and everyone I knew was having revolutionary experiences, for me--nothing. When I read John Eldredge's phenomenal books and Eldredge also talks at length about receiving a new name from God, I prayed on that a lot, and--nothing. It's almost as if God reminds me that He and I do enjoy a "vital communion" and my experiences are never quite the same as those around me. So I prayed. And I released it. He knows I am listening.... Quotes---------- “The Bible is a series of case studies about identity. Whatever predicament you find yourself in, look in the Bible for case studies from various cultures and from different times. Where is there a situation like yours? Right there in Babylon. Read the case study and ask, ‘How did that guy screw up? Oh, that’s what he did.’” *** Here’s a thought: Do you complain, or do you lament? “Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God … a distrust in the love-beat of the Father’s heart … Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty.” --Jamie Winship, quoting Ann Voskamp, in his book, LIVING FEARLESS. ...more |
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Aug 09, 2024
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| 0446675539
| 4.31
| 1,233,473
| Jun 30, 1936
| Apr 01, 1999
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This is the fastest thousand-page book I have ever read. There was not a single slow spot. There were no essays on history or slow passages where you
This is the fastest thousand-page book I have ever read. There was not a single slow spot. There were no essays on history or slow passages where you discover some geopolitical truths happening behind the scenes. It was just a good story. Because of the bad press books and films like Gone With the Wind have received recently, I felt guilty reading the book in public places. No. That’s not correct. I did not feel guilty. I simply felt exposed, afraid someone who objects to the book would confront me in a restaurant and I would have to defend my reading choices. Here is that defense: “I didn’t write the book, I’m only reading it. And before I read Margaret Mitchell, I read Toni Morrison’s BELOVED. I read SULA. I read Alice Walker’s THE COLOR PURPLE and MERIDIAN. I’ve read Ralph Ellison’s THE INVISIBLE MAN. I’ve read Zora Neale Hurston’s THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD. I’ve read Frederick Douglass and Langston Hughes and Alex Haley and Martin Luther King. Would you deny me the reading of one of the century’s best sellers (28 million copies), a Pulitzer prize winning novel that remains popular with millions of people? Do you really believe censorship is the answer? Censorship? Really?” This is a complicated issue. I recognize that black characters in Gone With the Wind are not as fleshed out as the white characters. They are background figures, and like background figures in all books, tend to be illuminated by as few brushstrokes as possible. But it is a mistake to complain that they are “too happy” or that they are not bitter enough about slavery—the complaint levied by critics of Disney’s self-censored film, SONG OF THE SOUTH. The book includes black characters that run the gamut. Some are content, others bitter, and still others criminally violent. The greater problem is that Mitchell herself appears to subscribe to the paternalistic racism of her time, holding that blacks are better off with white folks looking after them. I won’t defend a view so obviously wrong. As a novel, however, the book is not without merit. Mitchell tells a good story. It’s the white people’s story, a story about Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes, about a people trying to hold onto a Southern way of life that, following the war, is suddenly gone with the wind. Perhaps an even better reason to read the book is as a “history” of reconstruction and the havoc it wrought on Georgia. That part of the story was more interesting than the Civil War story. Frankly, the stories Mitchell told about Yankee (or Union) oppression of the South were tragic, fascinating, and compelling. This was clearly not the Marshall Plan. In the end, this is a book that does contain racism. Like Huckleberry Finn, the book uses the “N” word. Unlike Finn, the book, taken as a whole, does NOT end up moving readers toward a less racist, more egalitarian world. I hate to admit it, but that aspect of the book does not somehow work out, redeem itself, and we go on reading the epic novel for generations. Huck Finn, this ain’t. But as a southern story of the Civil War, of reconstruction, and of the day-to-day struggles of the elite, once wealthy and lazy class of ruling whites in the old south trying to adjust to life in a new world, GWTW remains a good story. GWTW is a well-written tragic tale of the way two people in love can ruin everything through pride and selfishness and refusing to communicate. Taken purely as a love story—this is not a bad tale, though for me, the nastiness of the main characters left me unsentimental. When I reached the final pages of LES MISERABLES, I wept. When I finished GONE WITH THE WIND, I shrugged and began wondering about this review and how much hate I would receive if I dared to say anything good about the book. Is it possible to find any value in a book I already admitted contains racism? For me, it is possible. Just as I read books filled with so many other sins, horrible evils from murder to genocide, yet in the end, you may learn something. What you learn from GWTW may not involve race. But you can learn a great deal about the history of the nation, about the South, about reconstruction, and about the almost English class system that controlled the South before the war. I believe you can learn from a writer without agreeing with that writer. QUOTATIONS--- Unexpected opening line: "Scarlet O'Hara was not beautiful..." --Margaret Mitchell, GONE WITH THE WIND. (For context, it goes on: "...but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.") *** "Mother had always been just as she was: a pillar of strength, a fount of wisdom, the one person who knew the answers to everything ... Mother was the embodiment of justice, truth, loving tenderness and profound wisdom--a great lady." --lines reminding me of my own mother, from Margaret Mitchell's GONE WITH THE WIND. *** "Apologies, once postponed, become harder and harder to make, and finally impossible." *** "The Troop met twice a week in Jonesboro to drill and to pray for the war to begin." (Doesn't that capture the heart of youth when war is looming. Clearly these are young men who have never been shot at.) *** Could You Be Entertaining Angels Unawares? ...more |
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| 0525658556
| 9780525658559
| 0525658556
| 4.26
| 4,109
| Mar 02, 2021
| Mar 02, 2021
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Imagine a book with an endorsement from Tom Hanks on the front cover and a blurb from Steve Martin on the back. How could I not read it? Interesting, s Imagine a book with an endorsement from Tom Hanks on the front cover and a blurb from Steve Martin on the back. How could I not read it? Interesting, short memoir about a brief life as a sleight-of-hand expert-turned cheating poker dealer or "card mechanic." I enjoyed learning about a world I have never seen first-hand nor ever will. The book was okay, the story reasonably well-told. There's plenty to learn about a world few people understand, from magic, to cards, to gambling. And the book is slim in a way that feels just right. It's a quick read. "Virtually all of the techniques that magicians and card cheaters 'share' come from the world of the cheater. For hundreds, possibly thousands of years, magicians have taken tools from chaters and offered little in return. Or, more likely, cheaters didn't want what magicians had to offer. It's not that the magician's methods are inferior. It's that they have an entirely different relationship to deception.... At the turn of the 21st century, there were very few professional card mechanics still living in the wild. Sure, there were amateurs who dealt from the bottom in friendly games. But the professionals were no longer using sleight-of-hand. Just like the rest of the world, crooked gamblers had gone digital." AMORALMAN: A TRUE STORY AND OTHER LIES, by Derek Delguadio. ...more |
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| 9780679774389
| 0679774386
| 4.01
| 98,323
| Nov 1957
| Mar 18, 1997
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really liked it
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Another book on the SHORT LIST--Jaws, The Natural, The Body (Stand By Me), and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO: those rare books that are not as good as the movies. Cer Another book on the SHORT LIST--Jaws, The Natural, The Body (Stand By Me), and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO: those rare books that are not as good as the movies. Certainly I enjoyed the movie much more. But the film had a score. And lush cinematography. And the beautiful Julie Christie, an actress whose appearance in the film was so well-lit and touched-up, no mere mortal could compare, and certainly no mortal described in a Russian novel. That brings up my other problem. Though I cannot claim to have read many Russian novels, those I have read have left me baffled. Why do these people have so many names? Sometimes it seems each character has a first, middle, and last name, and then a dozen surnames and nicknames, and all of them are unfamiliar to an English reader and difficult to keep straight without some kind of chart. The edition I read included a cast of characters, but it only included the key players, and even then, did not include all of their names. That being said, this was a pleasant read. Imagine a few hours lost in a land that is absolutely frozen and inhospitable, everything as silent as the falling snow on a windless day. Quietly people go about trudging through lives made impossibly difficult by the elevation into law of the theories of Karl Marx. The people are oppressed beyond belief, they live in a system smothering them in propaganda that they know is not to be credited. And they keep telling themselves the problem with the world is those darn capitalists and all that mythical freedom. I have not seen the film in years, but if memory serves, the film was a bit more "American" and more clearly laid some blame at the feet of Communism. The book talks around those issues, but not quite as clearly, in my opinion--though one quote I copied down addresses the problems of collectivization clearly. Speaking of, here are a few favorite quotes: "It is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know whether God exists, or why, and yet believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, and that Christ's gospel is its foundation." --DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, by Boris Pasternak. *** As America's 2024 election season ramps up (those ads!): "Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!" *** "To carry on a conversation naturally and intelligently, a man must have an adequate supply of words. Of the three, only Zhivago answered this requirement ... Like a runaway cart, the conversation took the other two men where they did not want to go. Unable to steer it, they were bound, sooner or later, to bump into something, and to be hit. And so, in their sermonizing, time and again, they got off their tracks." *** "More vividly than ever before he realized that art has two constant, two unending concerns: it always meditates on death and thus always creates life. All great, genuine art resembles and continues the Revelation of St. John." *** WAIT FOR IT ... "No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history's organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track minds, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days ... but the fanatical spirit that inspired the upheavals is worshipped for decades thereafter, for centuries.... Mourning for Lara, Zhivago also mourned that distant summer when everyone's life had existed in its own right, not as an illustration for a thesis in support of the rightness of a superior policy." *** "I think that collectivization was an erroneous and unsuccessful measure and it was impossible [for the Communist government] to admit the error. To conceal the failure, people had to be cured, by every means of terrorism, of the habit of thinking and judging for themselves, and forced to see what didn't exist, to assert the very opposite of what their eyes told them. This accounts for the unexplained cruelties, ... the promulgation of a constitution that was never meant to be applied, and the introduction of elections that violated the very principle of free choice." --Boris Pasternak, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. *** Turns out, I re-watched the film in 2012 with my approximately middle-school-aged children. I found this post and a friend's comment on Facebook: "Watching a little Dr. Zhivago with the kids. You can blame the Bolsheviks and the Communists for so much, but when I blamed the havoc of the Revolution for Dr. Z's adultery, my kids just weren't buying it." Scott (who first introduced me to Zhivago) says--- "Artistically speaking, the two women in his life are metaphors: Tonya(Mrs. Z) represents tsarist Russia while Lara(the mistress) represents post-revolutionary Russia. How did the kids like the scene when the good doc returns home from World War I and finds that the government has taken over his private home and turned it into a commune? Ah, the "joys" of collectivism." Scott continues-- "Adulterous affair aside, I think DZ should be viewed by everyone. It's one of the few times Hollywood actually showed how dreadful life is for those living under a communist government. Pasha(Lara's revolutionary husband) perfectly represents what happens to the idealistic leftist once he attains actual power. He perfectly illustrates this quote from C.S. Lewis: 'Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.'" ...more |
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Great book for the man without a country--or the evangelical without a political party. I have been a Republican for life, decades longer than Donald Great book for the man without a country--or the evangelical without a political party. I have been a Republican for life, decades longer than Donald Trump, as a matter of fact. But the Republican party of today does not look much like the Reaganites that I supported in 1985. More importantly, Christians--evangelicals and particularly members of Southern Baptist churches like mine--have drifted into new waters. Are we called to share the gospel or to win the culture wars? Are we called to love our enemies or to be "Warriors for Christ"? Following a string of ridiculous scandals, many involving people I personally know, I began reading the Roys Report. And it was on the Roys Report Podcast that I first heard about this book. I knew it would hit the spot. What I did not know was how well-written it would be. Alberta is a clever writer, building arguments that neatly defeat hypocrisy. Reading his book was a delight. It was sad and disappointing too. But it rings true--and I was after truth. I also appreciated Alberta's perspective. Though the son of a Michigan preacher, he certainly is not from my Southern Baptist/Texas culture. He provided an outsider's helpful reality check. Great work. I shared a few quotations on Facebook--and to be honest, I would have shared more passages, but did not want to deal with the constant pushback from my friends. *** "In the darkest chapters of Church history--the Crusades and Inquisition, the slave trade and sexual abuse scandals--the common denominator has been a willingness on the part of Christian authority figures to distort scripture for what they perceive to be some greater good." --Tim Alberta, THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY: AMERICAN EVANGELICALS IN AN AGE OF EXTREMISM. **** I was today years old when I learned there are different kinds of euphemisms. One is the "BOWDLERIZED EUPHEMISM." Best-known example is the partisan slogan inadvertently created by NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast at the Talladega Superspeedway, October 2, 2021. Yep. A bowdlerized euphemism. The more you know... HT--Tim Alberta. (Not ONE PERSON commented in a manner indicating that they recognized the "Let's Go Brandon" reference.) **** YOU’RE GONNA WANT TO READ THIS TWICE ... “In 1968, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, the flagship evangelical publication founded by Billy Graham, convened a symposium of some two dozen theologians who ultimately could not agree whether abortion was sinful. In 1971, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution affirming the procedure under a generous range of circumstances [this resolution was re-affirmed by the SBC many times in the years following]. W.A. Criswell, the SBC ex-president and legendary pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, … approved: ‘I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person.’ In 1973, Barry Garrett, the D.C. bureau chief for the BAPTIST PRESS, reacted to the ROE decision by writing that the Supreme Court had ‘advanced the cause of religious liberty, human equality, and justice.’” --Tim Alberta, THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY: AMERICAN EVANGELICALS IN AN AGE OF EXTREMISM. **** (AND FINALLY, THIS ESSAY BASED ON THE ABOVE PASSAGE FROM ALBERTA'S BOOK.)---- ARGUABLY IRREVERENT THOUGHTS ON SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE SUNDAY. Those of us who are pro-life have long fancied ourselves knights on white horses, fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves--the unborn. Of course, those who are pro-choice feel the same way--they are sincere about helping young women in a crisis. It is Christians, Christ followers who created "Sanctity of Human Life Day." And being a Christ follower is tough. There's nothing easy about it if you take it seriously. Love your enemies? Pray for them? Are you serious, right now? But surely Jesus doesn't expect me to love an abortionist? Or to pray for the head of Planned Parenthood? Of course not. Those people are monsters, right? Jesus never said to pray for monsters. They're demons, Satan's minions. No one prays for them. God does not expect us to love them. You can tell yourself that all day long. And Jesus looks at you and repeats it: "Love your enemies. And pray for them." But they're monsters! Love them. They're killing babies! Pray for them. They're AntiChrist Armageddon Monsters! Love them. They're not monsters. They're broken, fallen humans, no worse than those who crucified Jesus. And He loved them. He forgave them. He prayed for them. Christians have perfected the artifice of demonizing our political opponents so we can justify hating them. We tell ourselves they are monsters so we can justify the hateful way we speak and act. We tell ourselves those on the left are devils and we do not have to love devils. We hate them. We call them clever names and turn them into cartoonish caricatures rather than fellow sons and daughters of Adam, made in God's image. Cartoons and caricatures and monsters are easy to hate. But Jesus commands us to love. It's not a suggestion. Jesus commands us to pray. It's not a suggestion. Instead, we slander. We name-call. We sling mud. We spread lies and half-truths. We elect politicians who will be hateful on our behalf, then congratulate ourselves for holding our tongues. (But the principal is always liable for the actions of his agent--if an elected official is my agent, am I not responsible for everything he or she does?) Here's the thing about abortion. When Roe v. Wade was decided, a great many prominent Christians were in FAVOR of the decision. (SEE BELOW.) It took ten or twenty years of reflection for the church to line up solidly on the side of life. (Medical ethics is forever raising new, difficult questions that require serious study and reflection to sort out. We need time and Godly wisdom--and a lot of prayer.) But if it took the church--a body ostensibly filled with praying men and women of God--a dozen years to sort out the issue of abortion, how can we demonize those who maintain the initial position of our fathers in the faith? After all, it took praying people years to line up on the pro-life side. But who is praying for the pro-choice side? Have we on the right spent as much time praying for those on the left as we have calling them "murderers"? If we demonize our political opponents instead of praying for them, how can we expect them to change? THE CHURCH WILL NEVER CHANGE THE WORLD THROUGH POLITICS, BUT BY LOVING, SERVING, AND PRAYING FOR OUR "ENEMIES." Below is a remarkable account of early responses to the ROE decision from various Christian parties. Prayer and Godly wisdom would later birth in these Christians (and others like them) a deeper understanding and devotion to the sanctity of human life. Perhaps humility, love, and fervent prayer would produce the same result in those we have failed to persuade with forty years of name-calling and mud-slinging. “In 1968, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, the flagship evangelical publication founded by Billy Graham, convened a symposium of some two dozen theologians who ultimately could not agree whether abortion was sinful. In 1971, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution affirming the procedure under a generous range of circumstances [this resolution was re-affirmed by the SBC many times in the years following]. W.A. Criswell, the SBC ex-president and legendary pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, … approved: ‘I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person.’ In 1973, Barry Garrett, the D.C. bureau chief for the BAPTIST PRESS, reacted to the ROE decision by writing that the Supreme Court had ‘advanced the cause of religious liberty, human equality, and justice.’” --from Tim Alberta, THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY: AMERICAN EVANGELICALS IN AN AGE OF EXTREMISM. ...more |
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I enjoyed this chronicle of a man fighting for intellectual honesty in his field. Just as the book TY COBB by Charles Leerhsen attempts to expose deca
I enjoyed this chronicle of a man fighting for intellectual honesty in his field. Just as the book TY COBB by Charles Leerhsen attempts to expose decades of lies being told about the baseball great, so this book attempts to point out the use of non-existent medical diagnoses to explain-away deaths that happen while the deceased is in the custody of law enforcement. Of course, the videotaped death of George Floyd highlighted this problem like no death before it. But the practice has a long history. Dr. Baden has been fighting the problem since the 1960s. Don't get me wrong. Deaths will always happen while suspects are in custody, and law enforcement is certainly not always to blame. Sometimes the deceased really did die of a drug overdose. But too often, coroners and pathologists--viewing themselves not as objective scientists, but as part of the law enforcement team--are easily pressured into ignoring the actual cause of death (strangulation, for example) and attributing suspicious deaths to "extreme agitation" and other things that are not even actual medical diagnoses. Often such a statement on a death certificate requires the doctor performing the autopsy to ignore obvious evidence of violent deaths at the hands of police. I shared two quotes on Facebook. UNEXPECTED SENTENCE OF THE DAY. "Even after being in the ground for nine months, he was in very good shape. Settles had been well embalmed and his skin had not deteriorated much." --AMERICAN AUTOPSY: ONE MEDICAL EXAMINER'S DECADES-LONG FIGHT FOR RACIAL JUSTICE IN A BROKEN LEGAL SYSTEM, by Michael Baden, M.D. *** Thoughts during an autopsy of Medgar Evers, thirty years after his burial: "I stood there for a moment in silence. I'm not sure why, but I thought about all the autopsies I had done over the years. I had seen the human body in so many different states of being and it was still beautiful to me. Each body is a miracle of nerves, blood vessels, millions of capillaries. Trillions of cells, all in their proper place ... an autopsy is a holy thing for me." AMERICAN AUTOPSY: ONE MEDICAL EXAMINER'S DECADES-LONG FIGHT FOR RACIAL JUSTICE IN A BROKEN LEGAL SYSTEM, by Michael M. Baden, M.D. ...more |
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This was probably the book I enjoyed most in 2023. The fact that Beth Moore and I attended the same church for years and know many of the same people,
This was probably the book I enjoyed most in 2023. The fact that Beth Moore and I attended the same church for years and know many of the same people, and the fact that I recognized people and places throughout the book, could not but help my reaction. However, it is the beauty of her writing that really sold me. What a pleasure to read some of the most well-crafted sentences I have seen in a while. Beth is creative and gifted, a treasure to the church, a serious Bible student and a blessing to the Body of Christ. But the best thing I can say about her as a memoirist is that she crafts beautiful sentences. To put it another way, while I am a fan on many levels for many reasons, it is her mastery of the craft that really makes this book such a great read. I enjoyed the early parts of her story a bit more than the later ones. I think she was more vulnerable talking about those long dead and events more remote in time and place. As the story drew nearer to the present, she seemed a bit more careful, at times playing it close to the vest. And I understand and respect that. I found her story of leaving the Southern Baptist Convention, her lifelong home, well-written and painful to read. As I said, for many years it was my church that she attended. So I found all of this fascinating. And sadly, I understand. I share her discomfort with the unholy marriage of politics and evangelicalism. We have created a monster, and I no longer blame anyone for finding a way out. I have rarely shared more content from a book on Facebook than I did in this case: *** Speaking of her chain-smoking mother: "I was raised by a pillar of cloud by day and a lighter by night" --Beth Moore in her new memoir, ALL MY KNOTTED-UP LIFE. *** "I liked my orthodontist. He had a lot of good teeth and was always smiley, and this seemed just right to me, him being in the mouth business." --Beth Moore, ALL MY KNOTTED UP LIFE. *** BETH MOORE ON JOHN MOORE PLUMBING (well-known Houston powerhouse). "Keith came from hardworking blue-collar stock. One grandfather and several uncles managed to strike gold unstopping Houston's toilets, but it's fair to say his dad outdid them all. His name was doubly painted on the sides of white plumbing vans all over the city. The slogan read, "Call John and get Moore!" Beneath it, the company name: John Moore Plumbing. Handsome, rugged, and magnetic, the man gave the whole industry dignity, managing to pull up the collective pants of Houston's plumbers." ...more |
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Confession: I bought this looking for a memoir detailing the author's escape from special education. It was clear from the book jacket that he had beg
Confession: I bought this looking for a memoir detailing the author's escape from special education. It was clear from the book jacket that he had begun school with severe dyslexia and could not read for years, but somehow emerged from an Ivy League college with an honors degree in English literature of all things. HOW? How did this happen? I was down for some memoir reading. But this ain't that. Instead, this is apparently Mooney's second book, a sequel of sorts to the memoir for which I was salivating. I read it anyway. His quirky trip arond the country in a short bus, interviewing special ed students and their families certainly made for unusual reading. I'm not sure another book exactly like it exists anywhere. But it's not really a travelogue. The places are interesting, particularly his description of his time at BURNING MAN. But this is a book about people, most of them suffering like the rejects on Rudolph's "Island of Misfit Toys." I don't mean to speak ill of them. I sympathize, actually. I struggled greatly in school myself and I understand the way the institution can herd children this way and that like cattle heading to the slaughter. It's awful. The eight years I spent teaching in public schools did not restore my faith in the system, nor did the years my wife spent as a special ed teacher. On the other hand, schools are being asked to address some incredible challenges. If you think it is hard for kids like the author, so riddled by dyslexia that he could not read until he was 12, imagine trying to teach reading to a class of twenty or thirty kids when two or three of them have such severe challenges. That is an extraordinary burden for any teacher. Students like Mr. Mooney need a great deal of personalized attention (which his mother found for him), and most will not receive it. He does not claim to have answers. But Mooney's book raises SO MANY QUESTIONS. SO MANY QUESTIONS! Here are a few: What is normal? Is dyslexia normal? Is Down Syndrome normal? Is Autism/Asberger's best understood as existing on a continuum? Is there actually a spectrum--and if you move far enough in one direction or another, will you reach normal? (Again, what is "normal"?) Is everyone on that spectrum? Is ADHD really a thing? If so, why does it disappear (as Mooney points out) when kids are playing video games? If ADHD is a thing, what is the cause? How can you measure it, define it, and treat it? Does ADD/ADHD also exist on a spectrum? If so, are we all ADD at some point, or some of the time? Again--does ADHD even exist? Did it exist a century ago or did schools invent the condition as a way of labeling some behaviors bad while normalizing others? Can a blind girl be "normal"? Can a blind and deaf child be normal? And are lip-reading skills and cochlear implants going to destroy American Sign Language? Is it worth it for deaf children to essentially function as hearing children, thus depriving the deaf community of new members? Is that a thing? Are we anti-deaf if we try to equip deaf children to fully participate in the hearing world? These are interesting questions. Mooney raises all the right issues. But it remained his personal story that kept me interested in his odd quest. I still want to know how he overcame what were incredibly difficult challenges. I also want to know whether he wrote every word of this book. So often he speaks about not being able to read and write, as though that were understood. Yet, he graduated with a degree in literature... I'm assuming he wrote the book, yet, I remain unsure. I enjoyed putting some of his quotes on Facebook: *** THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD (Which kind are you?) "No one really got angry at any of our insane dogs. My family's carpets always reeked of urine. It wasn't until I went to Brown and visited my college friends' houses that I realized it was not the norm to have the carpets smell like a zoo. I quickly learned that there are two types of people in this world: those whose carpets reek and those whose carpets do not. I accept the fact that my family falls into the first category, and I'm more comfortable around people who know this sort of secret shame." from THE SHORT BUS: A JOURNEY BEYOND NORMAL, by Jonathan Mooney. *** (Shared this one for my friends in Austin.) "Austin itself seemed flat to me, though Texans insist that the city is situated on a hill ... To hear natives hype Austin's aesthetics, one would think Austin was like Rome--a city raised to the heights by seven mythic hills--and that the Colorado River flowed like the storied Tiber. Needless to say, neither the hills nor the river are mythic, but Austin is still a beautiful city, in a quiet kind of way, and the river does drift with a rhythm, pace, and purpose, leading nowhere in particular but still somewhere in general." *** A WRITER HUNTING AMERICA'S FREAK SHOWS VISITS GRACELAND. "The gate in front of Elvis's house seemed to be a Wailing Wall of sorts. People had left flowers, notes, and gifts. As we drove through the gate, a man dressed as Michael Jackson danced out front. He had it down: one glove, a white sequined shirt with tight black pants, and a perfect moonwalk down the street. The tour begins with the formal dining room, the archetypal room of an American family. We're supposed to imagine him there, perhaps during the fat period, wearing an outrageous outfit and carving a Christmas goose ... I wondered what pulled people here. People lined up to see Stalin's tomb in Red Square, Mao's in Tiananmen Square, but in the United States, we went to Graceland. Every culture has these places where we stand in line to stare at a body." *** "My mom, a radical philistine, denounced any music, or art, that wasn't for the revolution. But even this was a pose. Mom was passionate about Bob Dylan, U2, and Bruce Springsteen, of course, any band that sang about the working man or politics. But she also fell in love with Paul Simon's RHYTHYM OF THE SAINTS. I caught her one day playing this album. She was standing near the sink, her sleeves rolled up from washing dishes, staring out the window watching the snow fall. When she saw me, she turned the music off and looked to the floor as if I'd seen her naked." *** ABOUT THAT TIME YOU WERE LOCKED UP IN AN ASYLUM... "I learned something really important about 'normal' then," he said, and looked directly at me. "I learned that sickness is really normal. That sickness is a part of health. I learned that normal is so much bigger than we think.... When you realize that sickness is normal, you're free. You can stop trying to be other than as you are." (And so concludes our series of quotations from THE SHORT BUS: A JOURNEY BEYOND NORMAL, by Jonathan Mooney, a writer with an honors degree in English from Brown who nevertheless could not read until he was 12, had dyslexia and more, and yes, rode the short bus.) ...more |
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A good memoir, a story of overcoming difficult setbacks--the least of which may have been the lobotomy. The idea of giving a lobotomy to a child of tw
A good memoir, a story of overcoming difficult setbacks--the least of which may have been the lobotomy. The idea of giving a lobotomy to a child of twelve is just outrageous, yet in the end, his youth is very likely what saved him from being significantly brain damaged. Thank God for neuroplasticity. This book provides a useful history of the lobotomy as a procedure, along with an interesting portrait of the lone quack doctor who championed the treatment in spite of the complete lack of evidence of its efficacy. There was anecdotal evidence, sure. But nothing that rose to the level of proof. In fact, it was not even persuasive. And of course, the author was never a candidate for this or any other brain surgery. He had no mental illness whatsoever. What a story. But it is a great read. And though at least one reviewer called it sad, I would argue this book is uplifting. In the end, the author's life turned out okay and considering all that he went through, he has been incredibly strong and done quite well. His abilty to survive and thrive is nothing short of inspirational. I wrote about this on Facebook---- I do enjoy the ocassional odd book. Over the years I've spent weeks reading books about medical anomolies, psych patients, taxidermy, an American journalist living as a migrant on the border, con men, mole people living in abandoned subway tunnels, the coroner who sifted the dead from Hurricane Katrina, and one book whose title says it all: STIFF, THE CURIOUS LIFE OF THE HUMAN CADAVER. Yes sir, I do enjoy some odd books. And the one I picked up today? MY LOBOTOMY. Oh yeah. That hits the spot... **** UNEXPECTED SENTENCE OF THE DAY: "The front yard was filled with rose bushes, and the apple tree was filled with rats. We had to cut down the apple tree to get rid of the rats." --MY LOBOTOMY, by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming. ...more |
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| May 01, 2018
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really liked it
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My son bought me this book and dang if I didn't enjoy it! It is an interesting pairing, Churchill and Orwell: two men who never met, but lived through My son bought me this book and dang if I didn't enjoy it! It is an interesting pairing, Churchill and Orwell: two men who never met, but lived through some important times. The brilliance of this book is the writing. The tone. You can't often say that about non-fiction. But there was a drama, an urgency that kept me turning the pages. I might leave the book for a weekend, but was instantly right back in it when I picked it up again. This is a gripping tale, a well-written exploration of two completely disparate lives, men from different backgrounds, with different points of view on so many subjects until age and the experience of fascism brought them closer and closer to agreement. Great work. A fresh approach to two very well-known men whose lives have been explored so fully already. ...more |
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This is the best book I have read on the history of Texas. Kilmeade clears up the confusion surrounding the founding of Texas. I will begin with a bun This is the best book I have read on the history of Texas. Kilmeade clears up the confusion surrounding the founding of Texas. I will begin with a bunch of confusing dates. It may be bad writing to load the details at the opening of this review, but I am writing this for my own future reference, and I want to cover this in chronological order. Not all of what follows is from Kilmeade's book--he does not get lost in the weeds on these dates, merely explaining that "Jefferson believed the Purchase to include Texas." But I am heading into the weeds for one paragraph: You could argue the story of Texas begins with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Thomas Jefferson (and presumably Napoleon) believed the Louisiana Purchase to include the land of Texas, the Rio Grande being the understood (but unstated) western border. Spain later disputed that, claiming to have purchased Texas from France in 1762 (though the boundaries of that purchase were also unstated), and President John Quincy Adams surrendered Texas to Spain when he agreed to make the Sabine the border instead of the Rio Grande in 1819. When Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, naturally it claimed Texas. Nevertheless, there remains some grounds for a US claim to Texas based on Jefferson's understanding of the Louisiana Purchase. It is a grave misunderstanding that allows many today to believe--because of badly made movies--that America's acquisition of Texas was nothing more than a massive "land grab." In response to this, Kilmeade proves the simple truth: Spain and Mexico had long encouraged Americans to leave their homes and come settle the wilderness of Texas in exchange for land. Thousands came and put down roots, only to be kicked out a few years later by Santa Anna, the dictator who said all Americans must get out of Texas or be killed. More on that below. This book has short chapters and makes for relatively easy reading. This is not a historical tome, but a page turner. Enjoyable and somewhat light. For those who want to go deeper, the author provides a tremendous bibliography, end notes, and more at the end of the book. My only complaint about Kilmeade's work is that I believe the subtitle promises what the book fails to deliver. I believe he is correct in calling it "the Texas victory that changed American history," but I'm not convinced we have heard enough about that in this book. How did the victory change American history? How exactly? I believe there is a story here--not simply that America gained the land of Texas--but a story of valor and inspiration, of integrity and honor among warring nations, and more. There is a reason that for many generations Americans all over the country were inspired by the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto. I would love to hear more about that. What follows is not strictly a book review, per se. But these are two posts on Facebook that I wrote while reading the book.... *** I'm not a fan of the 2004 Alamo movie starring Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis Quaid. It oversimplifies the issues, making the whole battle nothing more than a land grab. The truth is, the Mexican government had encouraged Americans to move into Texas, offering cheap land if the newcomers would farm it, defend it, and settle it. Then after the Americans had moved in and built homes, villages, schools, and churches, the tyrant Santa Anna took over and decreed (among other things) that all Americans had to get out of Texas or be killed. After investing the best years of their lives carving a civilization out of a hostile wilderness, no one was interested in running back to Tennessee. The Texians (American settlers) along with Tejanos (Mexican citizens partial to the Texian cause) eventually drafted a DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE in which they set down in print their numerous complaints against Santa Anna, the new King George to the south. Because of Santa Anna's tyranny and despotism, the entire U.S. found itself rooting for the rebels in Texas--the obvious parallels to the fight with England 60 years before lost on no one. This was not a land grab. It was a battle for freedom and basic human rights. NOW, why do I bring this up? Because one of my complaints about the movie is its ubiquitous use (in marketing materials) of a line spoken by Davy Crockett: "You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." Even though I have the blue coffee cup with these words on it, I was convinced the line was apocryphal, made up in Hollywood. I was wrong. When Crockett faced a losing election, he explained: "'I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done; but if not, they might go to hell, and I would go to Texas.' After losing by 252 votes, Crockett, true to his word, lit out on the Southwest Trail." (And he then spent three months WALKING to Texas with his rifle Betsy.) --From SAM HOUSTON AND THE ALAMO AVENGERS: THE TEXAS VICTORY THAT CHANGED AMERICAN HISTORY, by Brian Kilmeade. *** A MOST UNUSUAL FUNERAL IN MEXICO. Following his humiliating loss at San Jacinto (or Lynch's Ferry), Santa Anna briefly withdrew from public life. Not only had he lost the war and lost Texas, but his men could not forget he ordered them to slaughter the Texian prisoners at the Alamo and at Goliad. Following the two massacres of unarmed men, one Mexican soldier wrote home, "any more victories like this one and we shall all go to straight to Hell." The bodies of the murdered prisoners were not buried, but burned in massive pyres. Eventually Santa Anna went to war again fighting off a French invasion of Mexico at Vera Cruz. The "Butcher of the Alamo" performed nobly (i.e., he didn't lose) and was also valiantly injured. His leg had to be amputated. The injury restored some of the shine to the name of the disgraced former president. Soon his fame and regal bearing won the people over and he would be elected president of Mexico again ... but not before they first held a STATE FUNERAL for the butcher's amputated leg. --Based on passages in SAM HOUSTON AND THE ALAMO AVENGERS, by Brian Kilmeade. ...more |
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| 9798857221303
| B0CFZC2KJ9
| 5.00
| 4
| unknown
| Aug 19, 2023
|
it was amazing
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Yep. Gonna review a book I wrote myself. Why not? I just re-read it again one year later. Here are my thoughts: This book reads itself! It begins with Yep. Gonna review a book I wrote myself. Why not? I just re-read it again one year later. Here are my thoughts: This book reads itself! It begins with a disarming story of the author's childhood that leaves you wanting more. This guy knows what it's like to be a terrible student, an excellent student, and everything in between. And he has taught every level at every age. The opening chapters are filled with so many good stories, and the later chapters read like a series of motivational speeches about every aspect of academic success. Speaking of: Were I to give a speech on this topic, I would begin with the content in chapter nine: education is for rebels. Nothing wrong with rebellion, the issue is the OBJECT of your rebellion. Jewish kids kicked out of school who rebel against the Nazis by secretly studying organic chemistry in the woods may be the best story of teenaged rebellion that I know. But all students need to rebel: rebel against a culture of laziness and superficial thinking. Rebel against TV and screentime and a thousand other things that rob you of a real education. I can't sit and write down favorite quotations because we'd be here all day. I guess the book says everything I wish it would. Sadly, today I found a typo on the last page. Ugh. But honestly: this is a good book. It is PACKED with good information, and it is also SHORT. Is that not the perfect combination? Five stars! ;-) ...more |
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Sep 07, 2023
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Paperback
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| 0394519434
| 9780394519432
| 0394519434
| 4.28
| 30,953
| Oct 1981
| Oct 1981
|
really liked it
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Horrible, sad, fascinating tale of a man suffering with a multiple personality disorder. This page-turner is impossible to put down, and yet something
Horrible, sad, fascinating tale of a man suffering with a multiple personality disorder. This page-turner is impossible to put down, and yet something tells me I never read the final chapter. Lost my copy or something. It's been 20 years--I guess I could start over. I remember reading this in high school, during a time when I rarely read a book for pleasure. This one was assigned by an art teacher, but I could not help myself--I loved reading this book. Merged review: Horrible, sad, fascinating tale of a man suffering with a multiple personality disorder. This page-turner is impossible to put down, and yet something tells me I never read the final chapter. Lost my copy or something. It's been 20 years--I guess I could start over. I remember reading this in high school, during a time when I rarely read a book for pleasure. This one was assigned by an art teacher, but I could not help myself--I loved reading this book. ...more |
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2
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Jan 1984
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Aug 19, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 1610395832
| 9781610395830
| 1610395832
| 4.15
| 10,772
| Mar 17, 2016
| Feb 23, 2016
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liked it
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An interesting look at the business of illegal drugs through an economic lens. I learned a few economic principles and enjoyed pondering others I'd kn
An interesting look at the business of illegal drugs through an economic lens. I learned a few economic principles and enjoyed pondering others I'd known for years: black market, white market, gray market; elastic demand vs. inelastic demand; how the drug control efforts often amount to "squeezing the balloon," because suppressing supply in one area simply moves it to another area; large retailers such as WALMART can be called "monopsonies" because they force sellers to sell to them at a price they set, because in many food markets Walmart is the only buyer. (A single buyer can control prices through a monopsony just as a single seller can control price through a monopoly.) Similarly, small-time farmers growing marijuana or coca in the mountains have only one buyer--the local drug cartel. Most interesting may be the research and analysis in the book indicating that attacking drugs at the point of supply--every politician's favorite campaign promise, because it requires no action on the domestic front and no one will see what happens (or does not happen) abroad--is a bad strategy. "Attempts to raise the price of cocaine by forcing up the cost of coca leaves is a bit like trying to drive up the price of art by raising the cost of paint.... Attacking the drug problem at its source sounds sensible. But economics suggests that, in fact, it is the least effective point at which to strike." Other facts: El Salvador's drug gangs were founded in the prisons of California. This writer compares prison to going to college, the institution being the perfect place for both recruiting and training. Tattoos in El Salvador can prevent some violence because each new member of a drug gang is quickly covered in his crew's ink. He will NEVER be able to leave and will certainly not be able to join a rival gang. (However, if spotted alone outside his territory, he will be an easy target.) "Because criminal organizations cannot use the legal system, violence is the only way for them to enforce contractual agreements." "One of the first signs of state failure is when people begin to take the law into their own hands." And thus, drug cartels step up, providing schooling, housing, hospitals, or whatever the people need, and thus they gain the locals (often including local governments) as allies. This is a particular problem in Central America, where government services are so very lacking. The book includes an interesting discussion of "LEGAL HIGHS" the synthetic drugs that are chemically altered to be just different enough to stay one step ahead of the law and then sold as "bath salts" or whatever---but the alterations can make them less effective and more dangerous. Also a good discussion of the SILK ROAD and other sites on the dark web. Wainwright explores legalization and changes in Colorado and states nearby, including a discussion of "narco tourism" or "marijuana tourism" drawing visitors to Colorado to buy marijuana. WHAT MAKES HEROIN SO DANGEROUS? "The margin between an effective dose and an overdose is narrower than that of any other mainstream narcotic. ... In the case of alcohol, [researchers] found that the ratio was about ten to one--in other words, if a couple of shots of vodka are enough to make you tipsy, twenty shots might kill you, if you can keep them down. Cocaine was slightly safer, with a ratio of fifteen to one. LSD has a ratio of 1,000 to one. ... But for heroin, the ratio between an effective dose and a deadly one is just six to one. Given that batches vary dramatically in their purity, each shot is a game of Russian roulette." ...more |
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Aug 07, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0805070869
| 9780805070866
| 0805070869
| 4.25
| 8,281
| 1949
| May 01, 2002
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really liked it
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Great story. There is some excellent writing here thanks in part to Murphy's friend and ghost writer, veteran David "Spec" McClure. There are excellen
Great story. There is some excellent writing here thanks in part to Murphy's friend and ghost writer, veteran David "Spec" McClure. There are excellent descriptions of the heat of battle, of several daring escapades, of various moments imprinted on the mind of Murphy, both beautiful and horrible. This actually works out to be an easy-read, a very comfortable, familiar war story, as though the reader and Murphy were sitting on some Texas front porch, sipping lemonade and swapping stories. There are no footnotes, nothing scholarly. But for a great book about the day-to-day life of an American soldier in World War Two's European theater, this can't be beat. I picked the book up at the Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas, the admiral's boyhood home. Some quotes. Murphy calls rain "THE PERENNIAL PLAGUE OF THE FOOT SOLDIER." "Rome is but another objective on an endless road called war. During the bitter months on Anzio, we dreamed of a triumphal entry into the great city. There were plans, promises, and threats of wholesale drinking and fornication. Now that our dream is an actuality, a vast indifference seizes us. Pitching our tents in a public park, we sleep until our brains grow soggy and life oozes back into our spirits." -Audie Murphy, TO HELL AND BACK. ...more |
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Jun 28, 2023
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Paperback
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| 0063112337
| 9780063112339
| 0063112337
| 4.37
| 20,370
| Oct 18, 2022
| Oct 18, 2022
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it was amazing
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Possibly the best book I have read on World War Two. I loved SOLDAT and THE WINDS OF WAR and others. But THE ESCAPE ARTIST captures just the right urg
Possibly the best book I have read on World War Two. I loved SOLDAT and THE WINDS OF WAR and others. But THE ESCAPE ARTIST captures just the right urgent, suspenseful tone. I'm not sure why that should be the criterion, but speaking not as a scholar but a reader, the tone kept me turning the pages. Even when I was not reading the book, I found myself thinking about it. I would compare the writing to SHADOW DIVERS--a different kind of book altogether, but another that I absolutely loved. I rarely assign a book five stars, but this one earned it. The story of the man who escaped from Auschwitz slows a bit in the years after the war. But I chalk that up to being an honest re-telling of the facts of Rudi's life, rather than a change in the tone of the book. After the war, Rudi's story goes from the story of undiluted heroism to a more layered portrait of a Holocaust survivor trying to navigate career and family under the long shadow of a childhood terror that will never leave him. Excellent work. Rather than my usual litany of great quotations--which would be pages long in this case--I will just highlight some of the parts I liked best. 1. It was fascinating to learn that several European nations actually PAID the Nazis to round up and "resettle" their Jewish populations, initially believing the GREAT CON that Germany intended to resettle them, and paying a premium for a paper guarantee assuring each nation that it would never see this person or that within its borders again. 2. I enjoyed the passage detailing the way books and education were taken from Rudi and his friends, and the way they got together secretly, as children and adolescents, to study organic chemistry. Rarely will you find a better use of youthful rebellion. As a professor, I love this: rebellion itself is not wrong. The question for young people is ARE YOU REBELLING AGAINST THE RIGHT THINGS? When so many rebel against school or "the man" or "the system," it is great to read about kids whose natural rebellion compels them to educate themselves. 3. The scene at Kanada was instructive. I can imagine the way Jews were forced to sell everything at rock-bottom prices, businesses, homes, valuables, then convert treasure to jewels or gold. And then they hide their only assets in the hem of their clothes, which were taken from them, and in such places as toothpaste tubes. Imagine the ladies sitting there emptying toothpaste tubes to see whether a diamond might be hidden inside. Such an ingenious hiding place! But the Nazis and the prisoners working in Kanada would have immediately discovered everything. 4. Some found it hard to imagine Germany spending money to murder civilians. But considering the way it was done, I would not be surprised if there was a net gain to the Nazi party. Construction at Auschwitz, an ounce or two of food for survivors, and trains, gas chambers, and furnaces running all day and all night may be a small price to pay when stealing the lands, building, artwork, jewels, gold, and other treasures owned by a part of the European population. Whether genocide was a net gain or net loss for the Nazi party may be a simple question, but one for which I have not yet found an answer. 5. The story of the two who escaped Auschwitz, their report to Jewish leaders in Slovakia, and the creation and distribution of the written report based on their experiences was among the most amazing reading I have enjoyed in years. Chilling. ...more |
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Jun 28, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 1401302785
| 9781401302788
| 1401302785
| 4.40
| 4,541
| Jan 01, 2007
| Nov 06, 2007
|
liked it
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This was a good read. Frost is a good writer, no doubt. I did find the names confusing but jotted the four (two pros and two amateurs) on a receipt I
This was a good read. Frost is a good writer, no doubt. I did find the names confusing but jotted the four (two pros and two amateurs) on a receipt I was using as a bookmark. Later I added the two men behind the wager--and eventually all sorts of other details and connections between the six men. They all knew each other in a variety of ways. Somewhere around the middle of the book I decided this book was like Shakespeare's JULIUS CAESAR--the climax is in Act 3 and Acts 4 and 5 are just the slow dull story of a train grinding to a halt. But then I found myself interested! Who knew four of today's professional golfers would agree to go to Cypress Point and recreate "the Match"? That, along with Frost's story of the later years of the original four made for a pretty good tale. It may not have the suspense and build of the first half of the book, but serious golf fans will appreciate the heartfelt odes to the masters Hogan, Nelson, Venturi, and Ward. I enjoyed the discussion of the age-old distinction between professional and amateur. Frost does a good job highlighting the differences in the way things were perceived in mid-century America. Frankly, it all seems simpler now, though some diehards might regret the passing of the "gentleman amateur." I don't. There were no amateurs in horse racing, but certainly millions who considered themselves rich, sophisticated gentlemen. I'm not sure the loss of the champion-level amateur is really any big problem. Those men are still out there--but now they play for money. Frost also does a good job creating the scene at the Cypress Point golf course. That place sounds like a must-see golf destination. Even if you never play it, maybe you can get a tour? I don't know. I'd just like to see it. (On second thought, I looked it up: no tours or tee times unless you are the guest of a member. And membership is $250,000 to join, then $15,000 per year. Dang. That's almost more than my family cell phone bill.) A few good quotes--- "He decided he'd been blessed with only two marketable gifts--gab and hustle--and to say that he went on to make the best of both of them is a colossal understatement." --Mark Frost, describing EDDIE LOWERY, the 10-year-old caddy made famous in the film THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED, who went on to become a multi-millionaire and serve on the executive committee of the US Golf Association. --From Frost's book, THE MATCH: THE DAY THE GAME OF GOLF CHANGED FOREVER. SENTENCE OF THE DAY: "The doctor announced that he was giving up medicine to pursue golf architecture full-time." (What?) --from THE MATCH, by Mark Frost, referring to the unexpected career decision of Dr. Alistair MacKenzie, famed designer of Augusta National (home of the Masters) Cypress Point, and many other world- renowned golf courses. "Ben Hogan hated waiting for amateurs. 'They're slower than a week in jail.'" --THE MATCH: THE DAY THE GAME OF GOLF CHANGED FOREVER, by Mark Frost. (Yes. Yes, we are.) "He's old-school tough. You don't win a U.S. Open without the mentality of a sniper." --from THE MATCH, by Mark Frost, discussing golf legend and thirty-year broadcaster, Ken Venturi. ...more |
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May 11, 2023
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Sep 25, 2024
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Sep 18, 2024
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Aug 29, 2024
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Aug 09, 2024
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Jul 29, 2024
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Apr 10, 2024
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Apr 01, 2024
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Feb 07, 2024
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Jan 10, 2024
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Dec 2023
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Jan 10, 2024
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Nov 17, 2023
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Nov 01, 2023
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Sep 29, 2023
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Sep 29, 2023
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| 5.00
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it was amazing
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Sep 07, 2023
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| 4.28
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really liked it
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Jan 1984
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Aug 19, 2023
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| 4.15
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Aug 07, 2023
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| 4.25
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Jun 28, 2023
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it was amazing
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Jun 28, 2023
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| 4.40
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May 11, 2023
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