Sweet Heaven When I Die: Faith, Faithlessness, and the Country In Between Review

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Sweet Heaven When I Die: Faith, Faithlessness, and the Country In Between Review"Sweet Heaven When I Die" is, for the observer of American religion, either a shock or a relief. Thank God, I say--the American spiritual landscape is not, after all, captured in Gallup polls (much less Barna or Pew), in percentages of church (or other "places of worship") attendance, which are the preferred measurements of tone-deaf newspapers and political strategists. As he has been doing for well over a decade, but here better than ever, Jeff Sharlet shows that, and how, the heart of this country's spiritual life is in its supposed fringes. A New Age snake-oil saleswoman greases the engines of New York's high-end real estate market. A UFO enthusiast becomes one of Washington's chief fundamentalist power-brokers. A huge media monopoly corners the market on the underground punk scene. What do punks have to do with "faith"? By the time you get to them you'll know.
For the non-observer of American religion, however, "Sweet Heaven" is even better, because you won't be clouded by all the dumb hang-ups. This is, above all, a book of stories, and a book about people--mainly extraordinary "ordinary" people whom the author encounters by accident or intention. Each story holds its own, and where there are points to be made, they're made only by implication, through the lives of those we meet. It's about radical aspirations, and the creep of big money into small communities, and it's about music, frustration, land, and desire. Two chapter titles include the same expletive.
This book reminds me why, when I discovered Sharlet's first book, "Killing the Buddha," I was almost afraid to read it. He exposes us to ourselves in a way that's uncomfortably dead-on, yet also so pleasurable, and funny, that you'll want it never to end.Sweet Heaven When I Die: Faith, Faithlessness, and the Country In Between Overview
Linked narrative nonfiction from the best-selling author of The Family.
No one explores the borderlands of belief and skepticism quite like Jeff Sharlet. He is ingenious, farsighted, and able to excavate the worlds of others, even the flakiest and most fanatical, with uncanny sympathy. Here, he reports back from the far reaches of belief, whether in the clear mountain air of "Sweet Fuck All, Colorado" or in a midnight congregation of urban anarchists celebrating a victory over police.From Dr. Cornel West to legendary banjo player Dock Boggs, from the youth evangelist Ron Luce to America's largest "Mind, Body, Spirit Expo," Sharlet profiles religious radicals, realists, and escapists. Including extended journeys published here for the first time, Sweet Heaven When I Die offers a portrait of our spiritual landscape that calls to mind Joan Didion's classic Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

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Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality, and Politics Review

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Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality, and Politics ReviewIn 1990 Adam Hamilton founded the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. After starting with four people, today their weekly attendance numbers about 7500 worshippers. Along the way, Hamilton has written at least a half-dozen books, the most current one urging a "radical center" that moves beyond the tired debates between evangelical conservatives and mainline liberals. Elsewhere Hamilton has advanced the language of "liberal evangelical" or "evangelical liberal."
"This book," he writes, "is my attempt at laying out one Christian's view of a Christianity of the via media or middle way between the extremes" of a Jerry Falwell and John Shelby Spong. That's not to say he argues for a mushy middle or some lowest common denominator. Far from it. The call of Jesus is radical. But because of the transcendence of God and the fallenness of humanity, we should never claim to understand the Jesus Way perfectly. Nor do we have to, for to do so would be a horrible burden.
What Hamilton argues for is not moderation but modesty. He embodies the so-called "peace-saying" of Peter Meiderlin, a Lutheran pastor who had grown tired of the rancor and division caused by doctrinal disputes in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. In the early 1620s he wrote a book under the pen name of Rupert Meldenius, entitled A Prayerful Admonition for Peace to the Theologians of the Augsburg Confession. In it he urged "in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity."
Hamilton is a fine example of an articulate pastor who's followed the Wesleyan quadrilateral of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. He has listened carefully for the intimations of the Spirit in his own life and in the lives of his parishioners, then incorporated these experiences into his reasoned interpretation of Scripture. He tackles head-on a dozen or so litmus-test issues that have divided Christians-- the Bible, science, evolution, world religions, hell, evil, doubt, ethics, abortion, homosexuality, war and politics. These are short chapters with sparse footnotes and excellent stories. They aren't intended as a substitute for a deeper study of complex issues that Hamilton would robustly recommend. Rather, what we get is the opportunity to look over the shoulder of a gifted pastor as he studies the Scriptures, cares deeply for his people, and celebrates the good news of Jesus.
Questions at the end of the book for each chapter encourage deeper reflection. I would have enjoyed a list of books "for further reading." Readers who expect Hamilton to "solve" the problems he raises will be disappointed, because that's precisely what he doesn't do. In the twenty-three short chapters he makes no pretense of offering a comprehensive analysis of the questions. Rather, he illustrates in a winsome manner how one believer has taken to heart the advice in one of John Wesley's most famous sermons ("Catholic Spirit" from 1755): "Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences" (231, 236).Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality, and Politics OverviewEveryone agrees that America is polarized, with ever-hardening positions held by people less and less willing to listen to one another. No one agrees on what to do about it. One solution that hasn't yet been tried, say Adam Hamilton, is for thinking persons of faith to model for the rest of the country a richer, more thoughtful conversation on the political, moral, and religious issues that divide us.Hamilton writes: I don't expect you to agree with everything I've written. I expect that in the future even I won't agree with everything I've written here. The point is not to get you to agree with me, but to encourage you to think about what you believe. In the end I will be inviting those of you who find this book resonates with what you feel is true, to join the movement to pursue a middle way between the left and the right --to make your voices heard-- and to model for our nation and for the church, how we can listen, learn, see truth as multi-sided, and love those with whom we disagree.Newsweek:How Would Jesus Choose?By Lisa Miller April 14, 2008Adam Hamilton does not call himself pro-choice. He prefers pro-life with a heavy heart. What that means, as he explains in his new book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White, is that he believes abortion should be available and legal, that there are instances in which it might be necessary and that those instances should be very rare. Further, he says, the abortion debate has been too hot for too long, and that, as a Christian minister, his job is to try to support people no matter what decision they make. As an evangelical megachurch pastor in Kansas, a man educated at Oral Roberts University, Hamilton speaks carefully, aware that he's staking out a controversial position.Or maybe not. About a third of white evangelicals say that abortion should sometimes or always be legal, according to the Pew Research Center a number that hasn't changed in a decade. In recent election seasons, however, these moderate voices have been drowned out by hard-line shouting on both sides. In the past, an evangelical who might condone abortion in the case of his ailing wife or 14-year-old daughter would never say so in public. Now, the abortion rhetoric has faded somewhat as evangelicals turn their attention to other things: AIDS, the environment, Darfur. In 2004, megapastor Rick Warren announced that abortion was a nonnegotiable for evangelical voters. This year, he's been silent. What's new, then, is not that a pastor like Hamilton would take a softer approach to abortion, but that he would feel comfortable enough to say so from the pulpit and in print.Hamilton wants pro-choice and pro-life advocates to join forces to reduce the number of abortions and he enumerates seven areas where they could find common ground. Let both sides agree that adequate information about birth control can help prevent pregnancy, he says. And let both sides agree that the longer a pregnancy progresses, the more morally problematic an abortion becomes.As for his heavy heart, Hamilton comes by it honestly. Seven years ago he received a letter from a parishioner describing her own teenage pregnancy in the years before Roe, the pressure from her parents to abort and her refusal to do so in spite of the cost. That letter was from his mother.

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The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule Review

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The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule ReviewFollowing up on his masterly examination of the paradox under which Red Staters consistently vote Republican against their own economic self-interest (WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?), Thomas Frank sets out to trace the present-day conservative Republican approach to government in THE WRECKING CREW. What he demonstrates is deeply disturbing even though it has remained on display virtually every day of the entire Bush II administration.
According to Frank, the conservative worldview is totally committed to "the ideal of laissez faire, meaning minimal government interference in the marketplace, along with hostility to taxation, regulation, organized labor, state ownership, and all the business community's other enemies. "The conservative movement promotes the interests of business exclusively over all else in accordance with the motto, "More business in government, less government in business." So-called "big government," also tagged as the liberal state, is the enemy; in fact, virtually all government is the enemy, other than the national defense.
Mr. Frank follows the conservative movement from the turn of the Twentieth Century through the Depression and New Deal, focusing most heavily on the movement's rebirth under Ronald Reagan and on into the new millennium. Along the way, he discusses the growth of lobbying as a major force in converting the nation's capital into a massive feeding ground for corporate special interests. Frank also highlights the manner in which conservatives have repeatedly run the country into huge spending deficits in order to "defund the left" while simultaneously politicizing government management positions by favoring ideology over competence. The end result under Republican conservative stewardship is government that demonstrates itself as ineffectual and incompetent, offering but further proof that big government is inherently incapable of working and needs to be outsourced to private, professional concerns who can do the job correctly (and then inevitably failing to do so).
THE WRECKING CREW is filled with fascinating side observations, such as its note that the movement has always lionized bullies, from Joe McCarthy to Bill O'Reilly, from Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay to George Allen and Michelle Malkin (whom Frank describes hilariously as "a pundit with the appearance of a Bratz doll but the soul of Chucky"). The book's most effective and outrage-generating section has to be its chapter on the Marianas Island of Saipan. Frank casts Saipan, with all its corruption, nepotism, income inequity, slave labor sweatshops, and local political control exercised in the name of big business as the perfect and ultimate model of the conservative movement ideal, a truly horrific prospect. He also notes, properly, that the morass that is today's Iraq is equally a product of the attempt to force fit these same free market ideals to a foreign country, implemented (so the Bush Administration hoped) by inexperienced, wet-behind-the-ears young idealogues, home-schooled ultra-Christians with college degrees from the likes of Patrick Henry College, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, and Pat Robertson's Regent University. Saipan and Iraq constituted "laboratories of liberty," modern-day "capitalists' dreams" whose realizations are (or at least should be) shameful American nightmares.
There is little good news in THE WRECKING CREW. Author Frank shows that our national government has been hollowed out under Republican conservative control, savaged into an ineffectual husk. Furthermore, he illustrates clearly that this was no mistake, that it is part of a deliberate process not just to privatize government and eradicate government regulation but to make these changes permanent by destroying the liberal left (and with it, of course, the Democratic Party). Frank demonstrates well that present day politics has truly become, to invert von Clausiwitz's famous maxim, "a continuation of war by other means." Regrettably, one side of the battle continues to play the game as politics, as elections won or lost and citizens swayed or not, while the other side approaches it as an act of war, a no-holds-barred contest in which the only goal is the complete and utter destruction of the other side.
THE WRECKING CREW is compelling and informative even as it paints a bleak picture of an America being driven rightward and increasingly toward the excesses and inequities of the pre-New Deal era. We all know how that era ended in October, 1929.
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The New York Times:The Complete Front Pages 1851-2009 Updated Edition Review

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The New York Times:The Complete Front Pages 1851-2009 Updated Edition ReviewDespite the fact that the New York Times is not my favorite paper with its liberal bias, I am also a history buff, and I love old newspapers and magazines. So last Christmas I ran out and bought the 2008 edition. Although enjoyable, it was missing several months (including my daughters birth month of Septmeber 1994, to my disappointment), and trying to read many of the older issues was very difficult.I'm happy to report that the 2009 edition not only includes the missing months, but to my surprise many of the more difficult papers to read have somehow been "cleaned up". I don't know how they did it, but i just compared the Sept 24 1851 paper in the two editions and it's like night and day, much easier to read in the new edition. Also as in the old edition you can easily access the NYT archive to continue reading a front page article or read the articles in the other pages of that newspaper. A very nice feature.If you were disappointed with the 2008 edition, I would recommend getting this revised edition.
The New York Times:The Complete Front Pages 1851-2009 Updated Edition OverviewNew edition of the national blockbuster and New York Times bestseller-with more than a dozen new front pages, including Obama's election and inauguration, his first trip abroad, the financial meltdown, Madoff, and more. One of the most popular gift books of the 2008 holiday season now includes the history-making Obama front pages and so much more. The book and three accompanying DVDs contain new front pages through May 2009. The nearly 55,000 pages in the book and DVDs date back to 1851 and provide the reader an unprecedented opportunity to experience the news as it was being reported. Essays by Jill Abramson, Richard Bernstein, Ethan Bronner, Roger Cohen, Gail Collins, Helene Cooper, Thomas L. Friedman, William Grimes, Caryn James, Gina Kolata, Paul Krugman, David Leonhardt, Steve Lohr, Frank Rich, Carla Anne Robbins, Gene Roberts, William Safire, Serge Schmemann, Sam Tanenhaus, and John Noble Wilford.DVD-ROMs run on a PC (Windows 2000/XP or later) or Mac (OSX 10.4.8 or later) with Adobe 8.0 or later. Free download available on the DVD-Roms."With the publishing of this stunning volume of the most momentous front pages of the past 150 years, accompanied by DVDs with every single Times front page ever published, a sprawling snapshot of human civilization as Americans saw it-is suddenly at our fingertips." -Ted Anthony, The Associated Press "[A] satisfyingly hefty volume'reminding you of how the experience of reading the newspaper is at once public and intimate, of the enduring, essential, all-important power of the printed word." -Francine Prose, O: The Oprah Magazine "Worth buying a coffee table for." -Dwight Garner, The New York Times

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Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves, and Letters of America's First Postmodern President Review

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Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves, and Letters of America's First Postmodern President ReviewI think the two (so far) totally negative reviews (one written by someone who hasn't even read the book) are politically motivated. As someone who at one time was an Obama supporter, as well as someone who loves language, I found this a fascinating book. Cashill's thesis is that Dreams From My Father was not written by Obama but by Bill Ayers, and not just as a ghost writer, but as author. What's more, the book is not really Obama's life story but a story concocted by Ayers based on his own experiences. Cashill offers extensive evidence to support this thesis, and it's not just the language and story-line similarities between Dreams and Ayers' own book. There are many inconsistencies in Obama's life story, some of which he's recounted himself at various times.
What interested me almost as much as the exploration of the truth of Obama's life story is the way the media showed no interest in investigating any of it. They'd circled their wagons around Obama and not only didn't want to dig for the truth, they brushed off those who did by calling them kooks. As someone who works hard to get the fullest sense of the news, and both sides of issues, I am appalled (although not surprised) by the total lack of interest by the media.
The reason I gave the book four stars instead of five is that Cashill presents so much detail in support of his thesis that at times I had trouble seeing the forest for the trees. I'd heard an interview by Cashill (which is why I bought the book), and if I hadn't heard him recite the bones of this story very clearly and concisely, I think I'd have had something of a struggle to keep my eye on the main thread of the argument. I should point out also, that he did not start out to prove that Ayers was the author, in fact Cashill hadn't even considered that. It came to him slowly as the evidence added up.

Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves, and Letters of America's First Postmodern President OverviewDid Obama write his own books and is the story they tell true? "I've written two books," Barack Obama told a crowd of teachers in July of 2008. "I actually wrote them myself." The teachers exploded in laughter. They got the joke: lesser politicians were not bright enough to do the same. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama supporters pointed to the first of those two books, the 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, as proof of Obama's superior intellect. Time magazine called Dreams "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician." The Obama campaign machine traded on the candidate's literary reputation, encouraging volunteers to "get out the vote and keep talking to others about the genius of Barack Obama." There was just one small flaw, as writer and literary detective Jack Cashill discovered months before the November 2008 election: nothing in Obama's history suggested he was capable of writing either Dreams or his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope. In fact, as Cashill continued his research, he came to the shocking conclusion that the real craftsman behind Dreams was terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers. "This was a charge," David Remnick admits in his definitive Obama biography, The Bridge, "that if ever proved true, or believed to be true among enough voters, could have been the end of the candidacy." Deconstructing Obama tells the story of what happens when a citizen journalist discovers a game-changing reality that the media refuse to acknowledge. Despite their rejection, Cashill expanded his research into Obama's literary canon. As he came to see, if Dreams serves as sacred text, the poem "Pop" is the Rosetta stone, the key to deciphering Obama's shrouded past, his fragile psyche, and his uniquely cryptic political life. In unlocking that past, Cashill discovered that the story that Obama has been telling all his life varies from the true story in ways big and small. In fact, much of Obama's life story appears to be a wholly constructed fabrication, one that Jack Cashill "deconstructs" to show the world just who Barack Obama really is.

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Realigning America: McKinley, Bryan, and the Remarkable Election of 1896 (American Presidential Elections) Review

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Realigning America: McKinley, Bryan, and the Remarkable Election of 1896 (American Presidential Elections) ReviewAs the editors note in the forward to this book, "[e]very election seems `critical' at the time it is held", yet only a very few prove to be truly pivotal in terms of reshaping the national political landscape. The presidential election of 1896 is one of those that deserves to be ranked in that select category. As R. Hal Williams explains, over the course of the contest between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan, "[n]ew voting patterns replaced the old, a new majority party arose to govern the country, and national policies shifted to suit the new realities." Williams's book, a volume in the "American Presidential Elections" series published by the University Press of Kansas, offers a history of the campaign, one that details just how and why it changed the nation in such profound and lasting ways.
Williams begins his study by providing the background to the election with a description of the political environment of the period. American voters began the decade by handing the Democratic Party a series of victories in the elections of 1890 and 1892, culminating in the return of Grover Cleveland to the White House. In the decades prior to the 1890s, the parties were closely matched, with presidential election usually decided by a mere percentage point or two - an environment that Williams notes made politicians cautious and denied any one party the majority needed to carry out bold initiatives. Exploiting discontent with Republican policies, Democratic candidates scored a series of victories at the start of the decade, victories which seemed to signal a realignment in their direction.
Yet these victories soon proved to be pyrrhic. Cleveland's inauguration coincided with a growing business panic, one that triggered a painful economic depression. Exacerbating the problem was a demand for gold that drained the government's reserved to dangerously low levels. Though many Democrats demanded that currency be made redeemable in silver as well as gold, Cleveland instead sought to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, a move that earned the enmity of many within his party. As Williams notes, silver took on a symbolic importance out of all relation to its actual economic significance. Most Democrats soon moved to repudiate the unpopular Cleveland, while the pro-gold standard Republicans profited from voter discontent with both his party and his administration.
With victory in the upcoming presidential contest increasingly likely, a number of Republicans sought their party's nomination. Williams argues, though, that it was never much of a contest, with McKinley easily sewing up the nomination well before the party's contest. He emerges in these pages not as Mark Hanna's colorless puppet, but as a shrewd politician who worked hard for several years to become the Republicans' frontrunner. While no less ambitious, Bryan faced a more challenging path to his party's nomination one dependent upon several breaks that all went his way. As Williams points out, both men's campaigns presaged the presidential contests of the century to come: Bryan's for his systematic touring of the country to win over voters, McKinley's for the move away from the "military" style of campaigning that prevailed after the Civil War in favor of one that marketed the candidate and his issues to voters. Though Williams argues that Bryan performed better than any other Democratic candidate would have, McKinley's victory proved to be the most lopsided in nearly a quarter-century, ushering in a period of Republican political dominance that would last until the Great Depression.
With an extensive background as a historian of the politics of the era, Williams is a sure guide to the context and events of the 1896 presidential campaign. His book provides an insightful study of the contest, one that explains its role in shaping the history of our country. The attention Williams gives to the role of the third party campaigns is especially commendable, for while they played perhaps only a minor role in shaping the outcome he shows how the reflect the pivotal issues of the election. All of this makes Williams's book the go-to account for anyone seeking to understand this pivotal presidential election or politics in the 1890s, one that will serve as the standard by which other books in the subject will be measured for decades to come.Realigning America: McKinley, Bryan, and the Remarkable Election of 1896 (American Presidential Elections) OverviewThe presidential election of 1896 is widely acknowledged as one of only a few that brought about fundamental realignments in American politics. New voting patterns replaced old, a new majority party came to power, and national policies shifted to reflect new realities. R. Hal Williams now presents the first study of that campaign in nearly fifty years, offering fresh interpretations on the victory of Republican William McKinley over Democrat William Jennings Bryan. In tracing the triumph of gold over silver in this fabled "battle of the standards," R. Hal Williams also tells how the Republicans--the party of central government, national authority, sound money, and activism--pulled off a stunning win over the Democrats--the party of state's rights, decentralization, inflation, and limited government. Meanwhile the People's Party, one of the most prominent third parties in the country's history, which also nominated Bryan, went down to a defeat from which it would never recover. Williams plunges readers into a contest that set new standards in financing, organization, and accountability, and he analyzes the transition from the long-dominant "military style" of campaign to the "educational style" that appealed to a savvier electorate. He also presents key players in new light: he views Bryan not simply as a gifted speaker whose "Cross of Gold" speech took the Democratic convention by storm, but as a more calculating politician with his eye squarely on the nomination; he depicts McKinley's campaign manager Mark Hanna not as the one-dimensional fundraising machine painted by history but rather as a shrewd, insightful politician who understood what was required to get his man elected; and he presents retiring president Cleveland as an increasingly out-of-touch, irrelevant chief executive whom the Democrats repudiated in a way no other party ever had a sitting president.With the Republicans' star on the rise and the Democrats banished to the South and the cities, the 1896 election was more than a victory of one party over another, it marked the emergence of new ways of politicking that makes this campaign especially relevant for twenty-first-century readers.This book is part of the American Presidential Elections series.

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The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election (American Presidential Elections) Review

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The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election (American Presidential Elections) ReviewThis book's title is a reference to journalist Theodore White's book about the 1960 presidential election, *The Making of the President, 1960,* published in 1961. In addition to being a best-seller, White's book was the first in a series of books on US presidential elections and set the tone for the interpretation of the 1960 election, a tone which glamorized John F. Kennedy as the "good guy" and Richard M. Nixon as the "villain" and which viewed the outcome as the triumph of liberalism over conservatism. Now along comes historian W.J. Rorabaugh who wants to peel away the onion and get at the "real" 1960 election and to re-evaluate this contest and its significance. What, then, does he find?
Perhaps his most interesting observation is the key role played by the southern states in the outcome. JFK selected Lyndon B. Johnson as his V.P. for a simple reason: he needed him to win the election. LBJ campaigned effectively in the South and brought Texas' 24 electoral votes (and those of many other southern states), without which the Democrats probably could not have won the presidency.
Rorabaugh also believes Nelson Rockefeller would have run stronger against JFK than Nixon. And that the GOP's choice for V.P., Henry Cabot Lodge, was a disaster, as for example, when he pledged in a Harlem campaign speech that Nixon would name an African American to his cabinet.
Other important outcome factors, according to Rorabaugh, include: the Democrats' very effective use of videotape and television; JFK's access to a personal airplane; huge sums of money, thanks in part to Joseph Kennedy; JFK's early recruitment of a talented staff and superb organization; JFK's adeptness at manipulating and catering to the media; and of course the first of the televised "debates" between Nixon and Kennedy which helped the underdog JFK immensely.
Going way beyond White, we also learn that JFK's staff members were not always the good guys, that they sometimes used dark tactics ("dirty tricks") to their advantage. Just ask the Hubert Humphrey campaign people about what happened in the Wisconsin and especially the West Virginia primaries, primaries that were decisive in JFK winning his party's nomination. It's hard to say for sure which candidate benefited more from the religious issue, but Rorabaugh's conservative conclusion on this issue is that JFK's victory proved that a Roman Catholic could finally be elected to the highest office in the land, thus helping to break down barriers in the future for minorities. As for White's portrayal of JFK's liberalism vs. Nixon's conservatism, the author says neither candiate cared much about ideology.
Rorabaugh doesn't do much with JFK's sex life, in case anyone was wondering. He notes that both JFK and his campaign manager-brother, Bobby, played loose with the accusation that JFK was suffering from Addison's disease, a charge made initially by LBJ's friends. (JFK did have Addison's but not the common type of this disease, so this could have provided the technicality for their denial.) I found it interesting that the author talks very little about Jacqueline Kennedy's role in the campaign. One tidbit that I was not aware of is that Jacqueline had never voted before, and on election day 1960 voted, but only for her husband.
I suspect that this book will now be considered the "standard" work on the 1960 election. (But don't overlook Gary A. Donaldson's 2007 book titled *The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon and the Election of 1960*.) I also suspect that many readers will find this book a bit on the dry side. I did. But I'm aware that Rorabaugh has written a couple previous books on the 1960s, and I intend to read and comment on them.
Tim Koerner May 2009
The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election (American Presidential Elections) OverviewWhen John Kennedy won the presidency in 1960, he also won the right to put his own spin on the victory--whether as an underdog's heroic triumph or a liberal crusader's overcoming special interests. Now W. J. Rorabaugh cuts through the mythology of this famous election to explain the nuts-and-bolts operations of the campaign and offer a corrective to Theodore White's flawed classic, The Making of the President.Despite a less than liberal record, JFK assumed the image of liberal hero--thanks to White and other journalists who were shamelessly manipulated by the Kennedy campaign. Rorabaugh instead paints JFK as the ideological twin of Nixon and his equal as a bare-knuckled politician, showing that Kennedy's hard-won, razor-thin victory was attributable less to his legendary charisma than to an enormous amount of money, an effective campaign organization, and television image-making.The 1960 election, Rorabaugh argues, reflects the transition from the dominance of old-style boss and convention politics to the growing significance of primaries, race, and especially TV--without which Kennedy would have been neither nominated nor elected. He recounts how JFK cultivated delegates to the 1960 Democratic convention; quietly wooed the still-important party bosses; and used a large personal organization, polls, and TV advertising to win primaries. JFK's master stroke, however, was choosing as a running mate Lyndon Johnson, whose campaigning in the South carried enough southern states to win the election. On the other side, Rorabaugh draws on Nixon's often-ignored files to take a close look at his dysfunctional campaign, which reflected the oddities of a dark and brooding candidate trapped into defending the Eisenhower administration. Yet the widely detested Nixon won almost as many votes as the charismatic Kennedy. This leads Rorabaugh to reexamine the darker side of the election: the Republicans' charges of vote fraud in Illinois and Texas, the use of money to prod or intimidate, manipulation of the media, and the bulldozing of opponents.The Real Making of the President gives us a sobering look at all of this, fundamentally reshaping our understanding of one of the nation's most memorable elections.This book is part of the American Presidential Elections series.

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A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother Review

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A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother ReviewI must preface this review by admitting I am a Republican and did not vote for Obama nor do I plan on voting for him next election. Still I must commend Scott for a simply amazing book considering how little has been known on Obama's mother and her fascinating life. Scott was able to pull together an incredible amount of information from which to tell write this book. I particularly enjoyed how she was able to win the trust of relatives not normally comfortable with detailing family history and also how even handed and impartial her take on the story was. The writing style itself also really lends itself to the story it told as Scott writes in a very fluid and coherent style which is easy to pick up. There is almost a dreamy quality to the early stories of the Kansas contingent of the Obama family and how education was such an important driver even many decades ago. One small criticism is that in some instances the same people are quoted multiple times saying basically the same thing which gets a bit repetitive. Plus often times the second half of the book seems more geared towards those interested in the history of Indonesian poverty then the actually story of Ann Dunham. It can get quite dense.
As for Stanley Ann Dunham who this book chronicles I don't want to give away the many intriguing elements of her life but will say there is a certain heartbreak in her likely sadness at not being in her son's life for long periods of time. One is left to wonder what their relationship would be like today has she not passed away at 52. One last point, I really enjoyed learning about Indonesia and other exotic locations which play a big role in this really well written book.
Totally recommended no matter your politics as long as you are interested in a fascinating life that nobody can deny had a profound affect on the world and history.A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother OverviewA major publishing event: an unprecedented look into the life of the woman who most singularly shaped Barack Obama--his mother. Barack Obama has written extensively about his father, but little is known about Stanley Ann Dunham, the fiercely independent woman who raised him, the person he credits for, as he says, "what is best in me." Here is the missing piece of the story. Award-winning reporter Janny Scott interviewed nearly two hundred of Dunham's friends, colleagues, and relatives (including both her children), and combed through boxes of personal and professional papers, letters to friends, and photo albums, to uncover the full breadth of this woman's inspiring and untraditional life, and to show the remarkable extent to which she shaped the man Obama is today. Dunham's story moves from Kansas and Washington state to Hawaii and Indonesia. It begins in a time when interracial marriage was still a felony in much of the United States, and culminates in the present, with her son as our president- something she never got to see. It is a poignant look at how character is passed from parent to child, and offers insight into how Obama's destiny was created early, by his mother's extraordinary faith in his gifts, and by her unconventional mothering. Finally, it is a heartbreaking story of a woman who died at age fifty-two, before her son would go on to his greatest accomplishments and reflections of what she taught him.

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Spies in the Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust (Modern War Studies) Review

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Spies in the Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust (Modern War Studies) ReviewProfessor Alvarez has done his homework, although I do believe his presentation on how the Vatican has conducted its intelligence does not actually reflect the sometime morbid tone Vatican efforts sometimes undertook. I believe Profesor Alvarez could have been more helpful with the issue of the Croatians and the Vatican as to the terrible treatment of members of the Jewish faith there is concerned in WW II, and the terrible conduct that some clergy exhibited in Croatia. The Professor would have been well advised to look more into the role of members of the Sovereign Military Order of St. John Hospitaller, as some of its membership in WWII was of deep significance and use to the Vatican's overall intelligence attempts to understand and combat Facism and Nazism.
Alvarez has done yeoman work in sifting through mountains of material, and I congratulate his effort. For all interested in understanding how wrong Stalin was when he asked "How many legions has the Pope?", read Spies in the Vaticam. One may be surprised.Spies in the Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust (Modern War Studies) Overview

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Politics and Pasta: How I Prosecuted Mobsters, Rebuilt a Dying City, Dined with Sinatra, Spent Five Years in a Federally Funded Gated Community, and Lived to Tell the Tale Review

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Politics and Pasta: How I Prosecuted Mobsters, Rebuilt a Dying City, Dined with Sinatra, Spent Five Years in a Federally Funded Gated Community, and Lived to Tell the Tale ReviewFor me this was a very exciting and entertaining read. Not only is it very often laugh out loud funny at Buddy's sense of humor, it also takes you inside his very exciting and eventful life. You learn so much from this book about insider politics and politicians both good and bad along the way. People I work with want to read this book simply from hearing me laugh out loud so often while reading it.
Over the years I watched the news, read the papers, read the books, and listened to talk radio all hammer the Mayor relentlessly and I always wanted to hear the other side of the argument. Something just never seemed to add up to me. There always seemed to be inconsistencies in the reporting as if they all had a vendetta against him or some sort of jealousy or ulterior motive. Certain judges rulings in the court case perplexed me as so very unfair and seriously biased. FINALLY you get to hear the other side of it, and it's revealed in a very witty and interesting story.
I never lived in Providence but followed Buddy's life through the media and watched firsthand the transformation of the city from the time I was a teenager, clubbing and taking advantage of its nightlife, up until today, over 30 years later. Arguably the result of Buddy's vision and tenacious resourcefulness the city today bares no resemblance to the dull gray lifeless place it used to be. In his book he'll let you in on the iron will and determination it took to make this transformation happen. I loved this book, it was so much fun to read.Politics and Pasta: How I Prosecuted Mobsters, Rebuilt a Dying City, Dined with Sinatra, Spent Five Years in a Federally Funded Gated Community, and Lived to Tell the Tale Overview

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The Seamless City: A Conservative Mayor's Approach to Urban Revitalization that Can Work Anywhere Review

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The Seamless City: A Conservative Mayor's Approach to Urban Revitalization that Can Work Anywhere ReviewThe Seamless City is a book about the common sense approach to government. It is written by the former Mayor of St Petersburg who applies his Midwest values to governing a city.
The book is an easy read about running a city. It explains how to plan, make decisions, and exercise the ability to listen to others to develop and execute the plan. Overall, the book shows that more politicians need to focus on their people and serve them, instead of being power hungry politicians who only care about themselves and their legacies.
I find it amazing that a conservative Republican won 70% of the vote in a predominantly democratic city. This proves that people don't care what party you belong to, they care about a government that cares about them. It is a two way street. You cannot lead effectively if you don't serve.
I especially enjoyed reading about some of Rick's experiences growing up and how they formed his plan for the city. He remembered small parks in a neighborhood full of people who cared about youth. What other government official would slide in the mud with teenagers and young people, even breaking his hand during all that fun?
I agree that the plan to reward principals and teachers who go above and beyond the call of duty is what we need today. Principals, vice principals and teachers shape the kids lives through leadership and relationships in their schools, not by school board members who drain school funds with their high salaries.
Working in the private sector on government projects, I continuously see government administrators who don't care anymore. They once did, but they have been influenced by power. Everyone should read this book as a strong reminder to keep our government officials accountable.
The Seamless City: A Conservative Mayor's Approach to Urban Revitalization that Can Work Anywhere OverviewHOW DO WE KEEP AMERICA GREAT?Rick Baker, former mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, provides a compelling-and challenging-answer: by making American cities great. And great cities are built first of all through strong leadership.During his two terms in office, Rick Baker worked toward a clear, uncompromising goal: to make St. Petersburg the best city in America. He led a downtown renaissance, rebuilt the most economically depressed area of the city, attracted businesses, worked to reduce violent crime, and made public schools a city priority-all with measurable results. The Seamless City offers practical advice, based on his nine years of experience in City Hall, to show how every mayor and city council can make their city dramatically better.In The Seamless City you'll step behind the scenes of city government to learn:How maintaining basic amenities, like running water, requires constant vigilance-and sometimes tough decisions on the part of city leadershipWhy a vibrant downtown is essential to attract businesses and create jobsWhy the most effective leadership is servant leadershipHow to find and implement the most effective solutions to a city's most challenging problemsWhy city government needs to regard the city as a seamless whole, with no section under-served or overlooked

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Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff Review

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Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff ReviewThoroughly delightful. Calvin's collection is LOL entertaining and certain to lift your spirits. Now I know what happened to my mother's favorite, chicken a la king. Maybe the chicken croquettes are there as well.Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff OverviewFor at least forty years, Calvin Trillin has committed blatant acts of funniness all over the place—in The New Yorker, in one-man off-Broadway shows, in his "deadline poetry" for The Nation, in comic novels like Tepper Isn't Going Out, in books chronicling his adventures as a happy eater, and in the column USA Today called "simply the funniest regular column in journalism."Now Trillin selects the best of his funny stuff and organizes it into topics like high finance ("My long-term investment strategy has been criticized as being entirely too dependent on Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes") and the literary life ("The average shelf life of a book is somewhere between milk and yogurt.")In Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin, the author deals with such subjects as the horrors of witnessing a voodoo economics ceremony and the mystery of how his mother managed for thirty years to feed her family nothing but leftovers ("We have a team of anthropologists in there now looking for the original meal") and the true story behind the Shoe Bomber: "The one terrorist in England with a sense of humor, a man known as Khalid the Droll, had said to the cell, 'I bet I can get them all to take off their shoes in airports.' " He remembers Sarah Palin with a poem called "On a Clear Day, I See Vladivostok" and John Edwards with one called "Yes, I Know He's a Mill Worker's Son, but There's Hollywood in That Hair." In this, the definitive collection of his humor, Calvin Trillin is prescient, insightful, and invariably hilarious.

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Five Miles Away, A World Apart: One City, Two Schools, and the Story of Educational Opportunity in Modern America Review

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Five Miles Away, A World Apart: One City, Two Schools, and the Story of Educational Opportunity in Modern America ReviewThe author presents a well-documented history of school desegration in Richmond. As a resident of Virginia during this time, the author presents the issues you might not have been aware of when you were only in elementary school. The author also is informative as to his insights into the courts, the judges, and the parties on both sides of the argument. The author's analysis of Detroit and Charlotte-Mecklenburg cases helped me to draw my own conclusions of how history played out over the past 50+ years and in hindsight how some ideas may have had flaws. While there was some controversy in my rural area of Virginia at this time, I was vaguely aware of the issues in the capital city. This book helped to fill in some of the gaps of not being there as well as explain the chain of events leading up to this point - many of which were before I was even born.
If you are from the right, you may not like this book. If you are middle-class and white, you might not like what you read. While the white middle-class played a major role in the transformation of Richmond, it was interesting to learn of the division within the class between "metropolitan whites" and their rural counterparts. For those that know the area, you would have to admit that Richmond has become a kind of urban "suburb" to the surrounding counties - especially Henrico County. Except for state government, law firms, and banking offices, most large retailers and shopping areas are located in the suburbs. (Department stores long abandoned downtown.) That form of economic segregation may be a subject for another author.Five Miles Away, A World Apart: One City, Two Schools, and the Story of Educational Opportunity in Modern America OverviewHow is it that, half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, educational opportunities remain so unequal for black and white students, not to mention poor and wealthy ones? In his important new book, Five Miles Away, A World Apart, James E. Ryan answers this question by tracing the fortunes of two schools in Richmond, Virginia--one in the city and the other in the suburbs. Ryan shows how court rulings in the 1970s, limiting the scope of desegregation, laid the groundwork for the sharp disparities between urban and suburban public schools that persist to this day. The Supreme Court, in accord with the wishes of the Nixon administration, allowed the suburbs to lock nonresidents out of their school systems. City schools, whose student bodies were becoming increasingly poor and black, simply received more funding, a measure that has proven largely ineffective, while the independence (and superiority) of suburban schools remained sacrosanct. Weaving together court opinions, social science research, and compelling interviews with students, teachers, and principals, Ryan explains why all the major education reforms since the 1970s--including school finance litigation, school choice, and the No Child Left Behind Act--have failed to bridge the gap between urban and suburban schools and have unintentionally entrenched segregation by race and class. As long as that segregation continues, Ryan forcefully argues, so too will educational inequality. Ryan closes by suggesting innovative ways to promote school integration, which would take advantage of unprecedented demographic shifts and an embrace of diversity among young adults. Exhaustively researched and elegantly written by one of the nation's leading education law scholars, Five Miles Away, A World Apart ties together, like no other book, a half-century's worth of education law and politics into a coherent, if disturbing, whole. It will be of interest to anyone who has ever wondered why our schools are so unequal and whether there is anything to be done about it.

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What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America Review

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What's the Matter with Kansas How Conservatives Won the Heart of America ReviewIn his book 1984, George Orwell described the state of perpetual war in his fictional future society by saying that the war wasn't meant to be won, it was only meant to be continuous. In WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?, Thomas Frank illustrates how, and how effectively, the neoconservative right has implemented Orwell's concepts via a neverending war over culture and values.
Using his home state of Kansas as the model and focal point, Frank asks rhetorically why it is that Kansans so willingly espouse right-wing social issues (creationism, defunding public schools, prayer in schools, pro-life) while simultaneously allowing their state to become economically devastated by Republican free market policies of unfettered, unregulated capitalism. In other words, why do Kansans (and many other Red Staters) vote consistently against their pocketbooks, against their own economic self-interest?
With great specificity, Frank illustrates these behaviors and their devastating economic consequences by describing individuals and communities in Kansas. These are some of the strongest parts of his book, since they demonstrate through real people and real towns how life has changed, and continues to change, under Republican conservative rule. If anything, Frank could use more of these examples, particularly more description of some of the small towns and communities in his state that are dying a slow and tortured economic death. Regardless, the examples given convey the sense that Kansans are voting Red even as they vote themselves economically dead.
Frank correctly ascribes this seemingly self-contradictory behavior to the idea that Conservatives have discovered a means to incite permanent "backlash" among the Red Staters through culture wars. Whatever the issue, whether it's Janet Jackson's right breast or gay marriage in Massachusetts, Conservative politicians whip up fierce indignation and activism by threatening the loss of American moral values to the eastern, intellectual elite who support the denigration of those values and the denial of moral absolutes. And, as Frank points out, despite years of bitter denunciation, almost nothing has changed. The war rages on, but the Conservatives rarely win even a skirmish.
By focusing attention on culture issues, the Conservatives not only distract their followers from economic concerns, they remove capitalism itself as an issue. For Red Staters, capitalism is a natural force, and free markets are an absolute good. Concerns about environment, globalization, estate taxes, Wal-Martization, health and welfare all disappear, since laissez-faire is an inviolable principle. Capitalism cannot and must not be regulated in this worldview, and any restrictions and regulations designed to "thwart" it are necessarily wrong if not evil. The fact that culture itself -- MTV, Hollywood, Howard Stern, Fear Factor -- is a capitalist product that follows the same profit motivations goes unnoticed. In Kansas, as in most places, there is no connection in people's minds between culture and capitalism.
Frank has put his thumb directly on the source of America's current problems, the so-called Red State, Blue State divide. As I write this review on July 9, 2004, the United States remains embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, our standing in the world is at an all-time low, Tom Ridge is warning against another imminent Al-Qaeda attack, the country is hemorrhaging jobs, young kids can less and less afford to go to college, gas and milk prices have soared to all-time highs, working men and women can't make ends meet even with two or more jobs, millions are without health insurance, the President claims the power to arrest and detain anyone he chooses without legal representation, and our education system is becoming enslaved to meaningless standardized tests. What solutions does our Republican President and Republican legislative branch offer? The Senate is too busy preparing for an all-out legislative war over a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to worry about real problems. The newspaper every day tells us just how correct Thomas Frank is in his analysis. Kansas isn't just Kansas, Kansis is us!
Anyone who truly wants to understand today's upside-down political world, who wants to understand how middle class people can enthusiastically support tax cuts that give them nothing and the rich more money and power, should read WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? Mr. Frank offers clear and straightforward explanation of this bizarre phenomenon, and his insights and implications should send chills down the spines of those who espouse a free, fair, and open society. To quote Frank's closing line: that the "fever-dream of martyrdom that Kansas follows today...invites us all to join in, to lay down our lives so others might cash out at the top; to renounce forever our middle-American prosperity in pursuit of a crimson fantasy of middle-American righteousness." How much better can it be said?What's the Matter with Kansas How Conservatives Won the Heart of America Overview

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How to Survive and Thrive During Hard Times Review

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How to Survive and Thrive During Hard Times ReviewThe title says it all. This book is full of rational and common sense information on surviving tough times, such as many face now, to worst case hard times where America would be in a severe depression and society breakdown for several years. The information goes beyond first aid kits and shelter. For example, in a simple straight forward manner it goes into how the bad side of human nature will express itself and how to prepare for it. Another example, it also goes into brief and simple advice in finding a job in hard times. The thought process is very clear on the recommended items and actions in this book. So clear that the reader can adapt the information as needed. Much of the book is useful even if you never see hard times. Negatives...Some may find having sections with the author's religious views as unnecessary and unwanted but none will find them offensive.How to Survive and Thrive During Hard Times OverviewThis book contains practical advice on how to survive an economic depression or a natural or manmade disaster that disrupts commerce. It contains alternatives for you to consider so you can make the best possible choices for the comfort and survival of your family during hard times.This book will provide you with a variety of options to consider in the areas of water and food procurement, gardening options, personal hygiene alternatives, practical battery operated electronic equipment, a summary of the relevant issues related to firearm selection, how to make your own ammunition at home, a common sense discussion of the pros and cons of a variety of different long-term survival strategies, some spiritual encouragement, and some recommendations for your family's continued education and entertainment.Unlike other books about hard times survival, this book is a hard times reference manual.It is not a book that you read once and then set aside.This book contains information you will need to frequently refer to during hard times as your situation changes.For example, if your water situation changes then you may need to review the information in the 20 page water chapter.If you acquire a different firearm then you may wish to improve your accuracy with that weapon by reviewing the information in the 26 page target shooting chapter.This manual contains 500 pages with 418 full-color pictures and 41 sketches and illustrations in black and white.The pictures and illustrations will help you follow a set of clear, concise instructions and minimize the chance of making a mistake.This book is a high quality detailed instruction manual that is worth the price you pay for it.This reference manual contains information of timeless value.It is the type of book you will pass on to your children and grandchildren.The reason is simple.This book contains detailed instructions on how to do all the following tasks if you should ever need to:1. How to make soap using rainwater, campfire ashes, and animal fat.The instructions in this manual are unique and the process that is described is not the method your ancestors used.It is a scientifically superior process that was developed by an engineer.2. How to make (cast) your own lead bullets using the wheel weights off the wheels of old cars in a junkyard.3. How to construct a high quality bow and arrows using a knife plus the appropriate raw materials you can find in nature.4. How to find water and how to make that water safe to drink in a variety of different environments.5. How to grow food from seed and how to grow seed from that food.Once you understand this process then you can provide your own food for an unlimited number of years into the future.6. How to preserve food for winter consumption without electricity or food canning jars using three simple old-fashioned methods.7. How to build a safe temporary shelter to protect your family from the weather and from predatory wild animals.This is not the type of shelter that is described in wilderness survival manuals.8. How to build an underground log cabin for long-term survival if the need should arise.It is easy to find information on how to build a traditional underground home but this manual explains the best way to use pine logs to build an underground "cabin cave." The information in this reference manual is timeless.This manual explains how to survive hard times during four separate phases:1. Short-term of two-weeks to four-weeks.2. Medium-term of six-months to one-year.3. Long-term of ten to twenty-years.4. Eternity with God in heaven.It would be a shame if a person survived very difficult times and lived to be 100 years old and then woke up one morning in hell.This book includes a special section on spiritual issues to assist a person prepare his or her entire family for eternity and not just the next few years.This high quality reference manual is a true bargain at its current price.

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