The Thin Red Line

So today I was supposed to write about Divided America,  a book long on statistics and short on useful ideas.   But given Barrack Obama’s selection as the Democratic nominee,  I find myself less able than ever to delve into Earl and Merle Black’s thesis that America is an evenly divided country with the Democrats controlling the Norheast and the West Coast, the Republicans controlling the South and the Mountains/Plains states and the Midwest  cast as the eternal "swing" region.   Of course, I could easily point out how dry and un-engaging I found the Black brothers analysis of long term regional polling data or the fact that the Black’s intense categorization of the electorate as, for example "non-Christian whites" vs "New American minorities" left me cold and confused.   But today, it seems to me is a day to celebrate Obama’s victory.   And the Blacks’ dry statistical analysis be damned.

Share This

In October of 2001 my later partner, Joel, and I took a long planned ‘once in a lifetime’ trip to Hawaii.   It was somewhat surreal traveling in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.   There were rifle-toting National Guardsmen all over every airport but apart from their conspicuous presence, airport security was still pretty low key and ‘customer service’ oriented  (if the security rules that had been in place on 9/11 had actually been FOLLOWED, none of the hijackers would have been allowed to board).   Passenger screening  had Not yet been "Halliburtoned" into a passenger funded federal agency that has turned checking in for a flight to Phoenix into an experience only slightly less intrusive and de-humanizing than be booked into a typical county jail.  

(more…)

Share This

I vividly remember as a child, in the days before Court TV when cameras were generally not allowed in court rooms, seeing the artist’s renditions of key testimony from various trials and hearings on the evening news.   I remember being so struck by how the drawings of what happened that day seemed to make it all more Real to me than the broadcasts of real trials and hearings would later seem when as now such broadcasts became ubiquitous.

Steve Mumford’s Baghdad Journal, subtitled An Artist in Occupied Iraq caught my attention the moment that I saw it.  It is the first time in many years  I have encountered art as journalism, and I was struck once again at how much more effective good drawings can be at conveying a reality vis a vis the endless propaganda  errr copy and film footage we have already seen regarding Iraq.

(more…)

Share This

April Fools!

Awhile back I did a post about Gary Trudeau’s latest Doonesbury collection and Frank Rich’s The Greatest Story Ever Sold and remarked that while both were excellent books I find I no longer have the stomach to read about our inept and corrupt politicians.   After reading an article in Newsweek  I recently posted to my politics blog (for the first time in ages) to plead my case that opposing Hillary Clinton does NOT constitute misogyny or sexism.   But the four books I am featuring today,  all of which have been in my stack for well over a month and some of which are Past Due at the library,  and  none of which I have been able to bring myself to read strongly suggest that I really am burned out on reading about political stuff.

(more…)

Share This

Happy Friday!    Back when I was in the eight grade one of our teachers made our course grade dependent upon a special project in which we would strictly limit the amount of television we watched and keep a journal and report on what things we did when not watching television.

I’m pleased to say that this junior high school experiment largely saved me from being a slave to the boob tube the way so many of my generation are.  So I was initially quite sympathetic in my approach to Living Outside The Box—TV-Free Families Share Their Secrets.  Surprisingly author Barbara Brock managed to quite lose me, in spite of my general and long time support of turn off the tv and DO SOMETHING with your life initatives.

(more…)

Share This

If you are not a fan of HBO’s hit gangster drama The Sopranos, you’ll probably want to skip this one. Glen Gabbard, M.D. is a psychiatrist and huge Sopranos fan and has written a book about the psychoses of Tony and his gang. With chapter titles like Tony’s Ailment, Tony’s Therapy and Is Tony Treabable Gabbard explores in some detail the psychiatric issues for which Tony Soprano seeks treatment from Dr. Jennifer Melfi in the hit series as well as taking a look at the psychological issues of Tony’s natal and crime families.

It is worth noting that The Psychology of the Sopranos reads less like a shrink dryly analyzing a bunch of fictional characters he could care less about than a rabid fan letter by a writer who happens to be a shrink and can gleefully discuss Just how crazy these characters are and why that makes the show so good. Recommended, for Sopranos fans who need a fix while waiting for the final season to be released on DVD.

Share This

I have to say, right off, that what follows is Not the post I had planned for today. I had intended to write about a book and an author whom I and some dearest friends have a personal history with. I had mentally composed a caustic and scathing diatribe castigating our former acquaintance. But as with another recent post, I found in the end that I could not write what I intended. And the reason I could not write that bitter, ugly post? Not because I came to believe that I was wrong in my conclusions but because a friend I care about deeply, who is wiser and stronger than I am (and who rarely realizes that he is in fact wise and strong) simply asked me not to.

(more…)

Share This

As I have mentioned in passing, I have been using Blog Catalog more and more, and primarily to meet and socialize with the kinds of thoughtful, logical people who can make an online argument fun, for those of us who like that sort of thing. I lead two discussion groups over there, Skilled Political Debate (moderated) and Ron Paul For President.

Don’t faint, Mom. I am not supporting or working for Ron Paul, and largely function as a devil’s advocate to respectfully question supporters claims and lead discussion threads so that they become conversations worth remembering. I am, however, working for blog catalog as an intern. I think the site owner and I agreed on the job title Ambassador, but he is a brilliant mile a minute kind of guy who occasionally pops in to lavish praise or ask a few questions or share news but mostly says, I trust you, do what you think best.

(more…)

Share This

This post should make you afraid. Very afraid. Although if you are middle-aged or elderly AND white AND rich AND do not have children, you might be able to safely ignore it. Dale C. Carson is a former Miami police officer, former FBI agent and currently a criminal defense attorney. In Arrest-Proof Yourself he paints a very frightening picture of the current state of the criminal justice system, although not for the sorts of reasons you might expect.

According to Carson, violent and serious crime is down substantially due to mandatory sentencing laws such as ‘three strikes’ and police now actively enforce many laws that at one time would have been over-looked. Further he states that since the implementation of federalized criminal records databases the fact of an arrest, for anything, even if the charges are subsequently dismissed or you are acquitted of any wrong doing will follow you for life, no matter where you go. Where in an earlier era it would have been possible to get a clean start by moving away from the location where your criminal record remained on paper in a filing cabinet, you may find your career and other life opportunities severely restricted by the on-line arrest record that many employers will be able to view.

Carson goes on to state that while the police do a good job of catching serious criminals, they spend the vast bulk of their time enforcing misdemeanor laws, most often arresting poor and minority miscreants who pose no threat to the society and who’s minor mis-deeds would be more appropriately and economically handled as civil matters. He argues that this constant churning of the poor through the criminal justice system, which is largely paid for by the families of those arrested in the form of bail, attorney’s fees, fines and probation fees is the major reason for the persistence of poverty.

The bulk of the book is devoted to very specific advise on how to avoid contact with the police and what to say, do and not do if you do have contact with the police in order to minimize your chances of be arrested. Much of the advise is common sense and seemed both reasonable and obvious to me– drive the speed limit, don’t carry drugs, dress appropriately; if contacted by the police provide your name and offer your ID and then SHUT UP. Do not consent to a search of your vehicle.

Other parts of the advice seemed absurd but may in fact be appropriate: if you have a teenager who drives, Carson advises you to remove the back seat of the car, have the trunk lid welded shut and fill the glove compartment, cup holders, map holders and any other nooks and crannies in which drugs or other contraband might be hidden with a hardening foam and placing in the car a signed affidavit stating that you have altered the car in this way to insure that no drugs or contraband may be hidden in it and authorizing police to search the car, remove the foam and pop the trunk should they suspect that drugs or other contraband are hidden in the car. This struck me as way over the top, but honesty I don’t know. Fearfully Recommended.

In sharp contrast to the current day manual for surviving the criminal justice system that reads like a dystopian fantasy, today’s other book selection paints a very different picture of police work from an earlier era. Published in 1956, Cop Hater is the first of the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain (a pseudonym for Evan Hunter). This series revolves around the police detectives in a particular precinct in an un-named fictitious city which is evocative of New York. The series hook is that the precinct itself is the central character with different officers taking the lead roles in each volume and stepping into the background but still visible in other installments. The wildly successful series is up to 50 books at this writing with additional volumes forthcoming.

A fairly standard mystery in the standard police procedural format, the principle appeal of the book to me was the 1950’s milieu and the older, less technological workings of the investigations of genuine bad guys and the absence of the of the excessively bureaucratic harassment and abuse of harmless miscreants that figured so prominently in the Carson book. Recommended.

Share This

Sunset falls as ferry crosses Eliot Bay

undated photograph by Joel Farmer

Today’s pic is for Ron, who admired the ferry pic I previously posted.

I confess that today’s books have all three been on my couch in varying stages of being read for a couple of weeks now and were not in my mind connected until Blog Rush advised that I could improve my click through rate with catchier headlines. My apologies to anyone who clicked through expecting a sensational story about a local government summarily executing exceptional jazz singers.

Compared to Chaucer’s Cantebury Tales, Tokyo Cancelled is a novel about delayed travelers entertaining each other by telling stories. A flight to Tokyo is diverted by weather and lands unexpectedly in an un-named city (presumably Delhi, India) where they find that an economic conference and the protests it has drawn have created a shortage of hotel rooms. Eventually all but thirteen of the planes passengers are dispatched to various accommodations when the remainder are told there are no more rooms to be had and settle in for a night in an airport lounge and begin telling each other stories to pass the time. The group of travelers proves to be from all over the world and each tells a very different story. The framework of this novel allows the author, Rana Dasgupta, to explore an unusually diverse range of ideas and settings, which he masterfully does, while never losing the believability of the ’stuck at the airport’ framework. A thanks to Cromley whose review first brought this one to my attention. Recommended.

I have never been a big fan of "self-help". While I firmly believe that each and every one of us must solve his own problems (if for no other reason than that nobody else is going to do it for you), I have rarely been a fan or a consumer of the mega industry of self-proclaimed experts with a sure fire scheme for resolving some problem or another they are convinced I have. Neither apparently has Jennifer Niesslein, whose Practically Perfect gently skewers a wide range of self-help gurus and movements. It reminded me a bit of Aunt Erma’s Cope Book, though in a very conversational tone that is evocative of a diary or journal rather than Bombeck’s laugh out loud wit. The book did not persuade me to try Real Simple or any of the other self help philosophies mentioned, but I am confident Niesslein never intended it to. Recommended.

Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams passed under my check-in scanner a couple of Sundays ago and caught my eye. I brought it home and read the introduction, which has a very "Drug War" tone and left me feeling the book would be more of the usual propaganda and set it aside, unread. Ron then picked it up and read it and liked it very much. He said that contrary to the impression I got from the introduction, this very readable history of prohibition in America clearly shows the lunacy and un-intended consequences that have flowed from our tragically flawed drug policies. He liked it very much and it is now back on my ‘to read’ pile. Jury still out on this one.

Share This