tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34300571102970787192024-02-25T03:54:39.062-05:00Book Reviews by Rick SincereAn archive of articles and essays written from 1980 to the present.Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-47616539151915866832018-03-26T07:39:00.000-04:002018-03-26T07:39:48.344-04:00"American Politics" at the 2018 Virginia Festival of the Book - #VaBook2018<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkntx_jtlFtpgtr86XtEMOYHhJ9H7KQ4Z9yZBkIUQXPNDYp5uWdI2LxTAWe0R1aWXgzsXcHngrkHQn83KJmka8ZR-sUpCsRsDvI4upKA0ImVNcvCIcuMBgDgP__3hfeViE8jwNYM-UEoQ/s1600/VaBookFestival2018-RGB-WEB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Virginia Festival of the Book American politics " border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="335" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkntx_jtlFtpgtr86XtEMOYHhJ9H7KQ4Z9yZBkIUQXPNDYp5uWdI2LxTAWe0R1aWXgzsXcHngrkHQn83KJmka8ZR-sUpCsRsDvI4upKA0ImVNcvCIcuMBgDgP__3hfeViE8jwNYM-UEoQ/s200/VaBookFestival2018-RGB-WEB.jpg" title="" width="83" /></a></div>
Despite its title, there was not much discussion of the left side of American politics by this panel of authors at the 2018 Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville.<br />
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The March 24 program, held in the Charlottesville City Council Chambers, was entitled "<a href="https://youtu.be/5G95v5uGGbc" target="_blank">American Politics: Left, Right & Center</a>" and featured three authors of books about contemporary American politics who spoke on a panel moderated by University of Virginia political scientist Carah Ong Whaley.<br />
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Former Pennsylvania Congressman Jason Altmire (author of <a href="https://amzn.to/2IUpavG" target="_blank"><i>Dead Center: How Political Polarization Divided America, and What We Can Do About It</i></a>), assistant professor in presidential studies at the Miller Center for Public Affairs Nicole Hemmer (<a href="https://amzn.to/2I3nnmF" target="_blank"><i>Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics</i></a>), and Irish journalist Caitriona Perry (<a href="https://amzn.to/2G6RBsp" target="_blank"><i>In America: Tales from Trump Country</i></a>) talked about the deep polarization in American politics, news and opinion media, and the country at large in a wide-ranging discussion prompted by questions from Whaley and members of the audience, who filled nearly every seat in the city hall auditorium.<br />
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Here is a video recording of the American politics panel:<br />
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5G95v5uGGbc" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Come back to this web site soon for more reports from this year's Virginia Festival of the Book, and watch out for the March 31 episode of <a href="https://bearingdrift.com/the-score/" target="_blank">The Score podcast on Bearing Drift</a> for an exclusive interview with Jason Altmire that followed the panel discussion.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=0717179532&asins=0717179532&linkId=956830100998a06cec50ebbac920661e&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=0812248392&asins=0812248392&linkId=a6b98c5fba0a0e40227a19c35e70792c&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=1620067773&asins=1620067773&linkId=07e3a5d79eaf2a3627f1a66181d2653b&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br />
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<br />Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-9108067049517166932018-03-23T23:44:00.000-04:002018-03-23T23:44:50.532-04:00Report from the 2018 Virginia Festival of the Book - Pot and Hemp<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlW0U_e6QkXuF-A424N72FkYXA6qGf45sxDyBMl0p1UdFJBSPppeuC-ENQVtf5B8ZKkYZNiCpHpEs0DykSp4Zh6FBaicMvPX3zGyikAs7G2Kbq41DmXMV3NNltPV-RyKIuYYUxsRzbOHQ/s1600/VaBookFestival2018-RGB-WEB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Virginia Festival of the Book cannabis hemp Charlottesville" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="335" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlW0U_e6QkXuF-A424N72FkYXA6qGf45sxDyBMl0p1UdFJBSPppeuC-ENQVtf5B8ZKkYZNiCpHpEs0DykSp4Zh6FBaicMvPX3zGyikAs7G2Kbq41DmXMV3NNltPV-RyKIuYYUxsRzbOHQ/s320/VaBookFestival2018-RGB-WEB.jpg" title="" width="134" /></a></div>
In a Virginia Festival of the Book program titled "<a href="https://www.vabook.org/program/growing-hemp-in-virginia-then-now/" target="_blank">Growing Hemp in Virginia: Then & Now</a>," authors Emily Dufton and Doug Fine discuss aspects of the debates over cannabis regulation and industrial hemp. The panel discussion was moderated by University of Virginia biology professor Michael Timko.<br />
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The panel is described on the web site of the Virginia Festival of the Book like this: "Emily Dufton (<i><a href="https://amzn.to/2IOZikI" target="_blank">Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America</a></i>) and Doug Fine (<a href="https://amzn.to/2I0L0wm" target="_blank"><i>Hemp Bound: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Next Agricultural Revolution</i></a>) discuss the history, legality, and finer aspects of growing hemp, a crop farmed nearby by Thomas Jefferson."<br />
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There was not much "then" in the "then & now" discussion. Dufton spoke about her research into grassroots activism on both sides of the marijuana legalization question. She looked at parents' movements in the 1970s that sought stricter laws on marijuana possession (a number of states decriminalized cannabis between 1973 and 1978, only to reverse those laws in the 1980s). She also traced the connection of HIV/AIDS activism to the medical marijuana movement that started in the early 1990s and resulted with 29 states and the District of Columbia legalizing use of pot for medicinal purposes. Dufton brings the tale forward to the present, when the Trump Administration, voiced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, threatens to end the leniency in enforcing federal marijuana laws in states like Colorado and California, which have legalized recreational weed use by adults.<br />
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ovRpqoUOvrg" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Doug Fine, also the author of <i><a href="https://amzn.to/2DQfkY6" target="_blank">Too High to Fail</a> </i>and <a href="https://amzn.to/2I0kp2e" target="_blank"><i>Farewell, My Subaru</i></a>, is a regenerative goat rancher, hemp farmer, and homeschooling father. He has testified before the United Nations and appeared on CNN and "The Tonight Show," and he is a regular contributor to NPR. His presentation focused on the benefits of industrial hemp farming but warned it is not a "get-rich-quiick" scheme. He noted the recent discovery of how hemp fibers can be utilized in electrical batteries.<br />
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An interview with Fine conducted after the panel ended can be found on "<a href="https://bearingdrift.com/the-score/" target="_blank">The Score</a>" podcast on BearingDrift.com, in the episode posted on March 24, 2018.<br />
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This panel discussion was moderated by Michael Timko, a professor of biology and the director of the undergraduate program in Human Biology at the University of Virginia. <br />
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The <a href="https://youtu.be/ovRpqoUOvrg" target="_blank">embedded video was recorded</a> in the chambers of the Charlottesville City Council on Wednesday, March 21, 2018.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=1603585435&asins=1603585435&linkId=8b81ac73927ee9356a38294a797b5f31&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=0465096166&asins=0465096166&linkId=ada7bad72e577161fc72505b12b07d71&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=0812977890&asins=0812977890&linkId=76777d5b20ae1fcc0b9349353da940dc&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-63835998812541481722018-01-24T00:31:00.000-05:002018-01-24T00:31:16.545-05:00More Books Unrecommended by Jimmy FallonJimmy Fallon, host of <i>The Tonight Show</i> on NBC-TV, has once again offered a list of books people should not read.<br />
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The <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2014/09/jimmy-fallons-new-do-not-read-list.html" target="_blank">odd</a> and <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2014/07/jimmy-fallons-do-not-read-list-of.html" target="_blank">quirky</a> "Do Not Read List" has become a <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2017/11/latest-do-not-read-list-from-jimmy.html" target="_blank">regular</a> <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2017/08/another-do-not-read-list-from-jimmy.html" target="_blank">feature</a> on <i>The Tonight Show</i>. The list for January 22 was shorter than usual, with only four books mentioned -- one nature book, one children's book, one animal book, and one how-to book.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Clams-Mysteries-Shellfish/dp/1629146978/ref=as_li_ss_il?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1516769472&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Secret+Life+of+Clams&linkCode=li2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=b6bc3e0cdb7d64b18b56aa99e0cbd0c7" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Tonight Show The Secret Life of Clams Anthony Fredericks" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1629146978&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li2&o=1&a=1629146978" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />The "nature book" was <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2E2F8lp" target="_blank">The Secret Life of Clams: The Mysteries and Magic of Our Favorite Shellfish</a></i>, written by Anthony D. Fredericks and released in 2014. Fallon noted that the book reveals that "Elvis recorded a song called 'Do the Clam' in 1965" and that the author promises that, if "[you] invite me to your next cocktail party, I can assure you I will not discuss bovine insemination." Reacting to that, Fallon shook his head and said, "I can’t believe I shelled out money for that."<br />
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Fredericks, it turns out, is the prolific author of 153 books, including <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2E2HPDu">Ace Your Teacher Interview: 149 Fantastic Answers to Tough Interview Questions</a></i>, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2n7NyQb">Under One Rock: Bugs, Slugs, and Other Ughs</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/2DE6LDz">Horseshoe Crab: Biography of a Survivor</a></i>, and <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2Dybeoc">The Complete Idiot's Guide to Teaching College</a></i>.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Affair-Childs-World-Library/dp/0895658178/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=370f26f3e170abc746bbc3a03bf1451a" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Mr. Ding and Mrs. Dong Tonight Show do not read children's book" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0895658178&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li1&o=1&a=0895658178" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />The "children's book," described as for "kids just beginning to read," was <a href="http://amzn.to/2GdEFgP" target="_blank"><i>The Love Affair of Mr. Ding and Mrs. Dong</i></a>, written in 1991 by Lionel Koechlin and illustrated by Annette Tamarkin Hatwell. In one excerpt read aloud by Jimmy Fallon, "Mr. Ding and Mrs Dong listen to their two hearts beating together, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong."<br />
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Koechlin and Hatwell also collaborated on <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2DH9yMt">Apartment for Rent: A Lulu and Banana Story</a></i> and <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2DvBYFM">Lulu and the Artist: A Lulu and Banana Story</a></i>. In addition, Koechlin wrote the French-language <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2n7Olk7">Trois baleines bleues</a></i>.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dogs-Their-Women-Louise-Taylor/dp/0316150363/ref=as_li_ss_il?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1516769518&sr=1-1&keywords=Dogs+and+Their+Women&linkCode=li1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=acf46819d4709670b668846a0654ba33" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Dogs and Their Women Tonight Show Do Not Read" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0316150363&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li1&o=1&a=0316150363" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Fallon's book for "animal lovers" was <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2Dwfxjy">Dogs and Their Women</a></i>, written by Louise Taylor and Barbara E. Cohen and published in 1989. Fallon showed a couple of odd photos from the book, one featuring a huge dog (which he compared to Clifford, the big red dog) and another with a dog that looked like he had a "drinking problem."<br />
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Cohen and Taylor also collaborated on <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2DBzCbL">Woman's Best Friend: A Celebration of Dogs and Their Women</a></i> (1996), <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2DE9gpr">Horses and Their Women</a></i> (1993), and <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2rznBi4">Cats and Their Women</a></i> (1992). (A theme seems to emerge from this bibliography.)<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Busy-People-Calvin-Campbell/dp/0961540427/ref=as_li_ss_il?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1516769576&sr=1-1&keywords=Dancing+for+Busy+People+Calvin+Campbell&linkCode=li1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=da8591c2794af9d0f9b1089453eaf57e" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Tonight Show Dancing for Busy People Do Not Read Jimmy Fallon" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0961540427&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li1&o=1&a=0961540427" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Finally, a "how-to" book called <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2E499RS" target="_blank">Dancing for Busy People</a></i>, by Calvin Campbell, appears to be out of print, despite a publication date of 2003. Fallon was amused by the directions for a dance called "Ding-Dong Daddy," which go something like this:<br />
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"Wait eight counts, clap knees twice, clap hands twice… touch palm to right album … making swimming motion … make motion of twirling a lasso … hitchhike motion with left arm … swat the fly and blow it away."<br />
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Sadly, Campbell has no other books to his name.<br />
<blockquote><iframe src="//rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?o=1&p=288&l=ur1&category=kuft&banner=0T90Z3RH70R989J9PDR2&f=ifr&linkID=67b5c12e28e1c1439caa2591ec9ae3f3&t=ricksincerene-20&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20" width="320" height="50" scrolling="no" border="0" marginwidth="0" style="border:none;" frameborder="0"></iframe></blockquote><br />
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Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-34641373763013521502017-11-30T00:37:00.000-05:002017-12-01T00:29:27.983-05:00Latest 'Do Not Read' List from Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight ShowDuring the episode first broadcast on November 29, with guests John Boyega (in advance of the premiere of <i>Star Wars: The Last Jedi</i> and promoting the re-release of <i>Detroit</i>) and Kevin Nealon (SNL veteran, <i>Weeds</i>, and more), Jimmy Fallon featured a few more books from his now-lengthy "Do Not Read List."<br />
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The list was eclectic, to say the least.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Microwave-Cooking-Diet-Vol-Litton/dp/0442245262/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&qid=1512016954&sr=8-1&keywords=Microwave+cooking+on+a+diet&linkCode=li1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=e4fddbe7e7371ce716357e9f6a19efdd" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="microwave cooking fallon tonight show do not read" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0442245262&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li1&o=1&a=0442245262" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Fallon's first listed item was the 1981 cookbook, <a href="http://amzn.to/2i1E0nS" target="_blank"><i>Microwave Cooking - On a Diet</i></a>, written by Barbara Methven with photographs by Michael Jensen, Steven Smith, and Ken Greer, described as "a collection of recipes for people on a diet and cooking with a microwave from Litton." The Tonight Show host pointed out that the cover photo -- rich chocolate pudding, it appears to be -- is one of the least likely things someone "on a diet" is likely to cook.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-be-Drug-Dealer-673126/dp/1505728797/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&qid=1512016984&sr=8-1&keywords=How+to+be+a+drug+dealer+by+673126&linkCode=li1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=bdf57c9a6bc1e0192ea174cf01e87a2e" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="How to be a drug dealer Fallon do not read list" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1505728797&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li1&o=1&a=1505728797" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />The second book on Fallon's newest list was somewhat more provocative: <a href="http://amzn.to/2j3Myvl" target="_blank"><i>How to be a Drug Dealer</i></a>, published in 2014 and written by 673126 (probably a pseudonym) and J. M.R. Rice. According to the Amazon description, "Are you tired of working all day and night without having anything to show for it? Would you like to be able to afford a vacation, or just be your own boss? This book will do just that by teaching you <i>How to be a Drug Dealer</i>! Are you already a drug dealer, but want to expand your business? Look no further than this book to help you increase your profits and grow your empire!"<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Teaching-College/dp/1592576001/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&qid=1512017015&sr=8-1&keywords=Complete+Idiot%27s+guide+to+teaching+college&linkCode=li1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=58c884e5b25882ccd69c160d59381292" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Idiots guide to teaching college Fallon Tonight do not read" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1592576001&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li1&o=1&a=1592576001" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Next on the "Do Not Read" list was an academic volume, <a href="http://amzn.to/2jxilV1" target="_blank"><i>The Complete Idiot's Guide to Teaching College</i></a>, published in 2007 by Anthony D. Fredericks. As Jimmy Fallon noted, if he saw that book on his college professor's book shelf, he would probably return to How to Be a Drug Dealer as a backup plan for a post-college career. The note on Amazon, however, seems to suggest a serious purpose: "Perfect for teaching assistants, graduate students, adjuncts, and anyone who might need a brush-up, this guide teaches everything from designing the best possible course and choosing a textbook to grading. It's also loaded with advice on giving effective lectures, leading discussions, and communicating well with students. Includes sample syllabi and lesson plans."<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reasons-Rapture-Will-1988-Rosh-Hash-Ana-ebook/dp/B01BE1L88G/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&qid=1512017045&sr=8-1&keywords=88+reasons+why+the+rapture+will+be+in+1988&linkCode=li1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=612c2ab475272c600db50d8a3354c598" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="88 reasons rapture 1988 Fallon tonight show do not read" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B01BE1L88G&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li1&o=1&a=B01BE1L88G" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />The fourth volume on Fallon's list was a book of prophecy by Edgar Whisenant, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2i24HIY" target="_blank">88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988</a></i>, published in a Kindle edition in 2016. (Fallon had a hard copy of the book to display on TV.) According to its publisher on Amazon, "In this highly influential book, the date for the Rapture is predicted to be 1988. Read inside to find 88 reasons why this was once thought to be the case!" (Who did it influence? It doesn't say. But as a predictive book, it left something to be desired.) Whisenant is also the author of the 2017 book with a similar theme, <a href="http://amzn.to/2AqOsju" target="_blank"><i>On Borrowed Time: The Bible Dates of the 70th Week of Daniel, Armageddon, the Millennium</i></a>, which is also touted as "highly influential."<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Catch-Crabs-Turbulence-Triumph-Book-ebook/dp/B00VHFPAS4/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&qid=1512017066&sr=8-2&keywords=how+to+catch+crabs&linkCode=li1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=cfa3b3a3413bd4600e9e5193c1d232ba" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="How to catch crabs tonight show jimmy fallon" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00VHFPAS4&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li1&o=1&a=B00VHFPAS4" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />A romance novel set in Australia was next on the list. Written by Demelza Carlton, the title is <a href="http://amzn.to/2zRrSRS" target="_blank"><i>How To Catch Crabs</i></a>. The description is compelling: "Love and babies: two things Lucy doesn't have time for in her life. It's 1926 and this young West Australian woman is happy as an accountant. And she intends to stay that way." Then, "along comes Giorgio, an Italian migrant fisherman sent to Australia in disgrace. The moment their eyes meet across the fish market, he knows Lucy's the girl for him. If it weren't for those damn crabs and his reputation as a rake, he's certain he could catch more than just her eye – perhaps even her heart, too."<br />
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Fallon was taken by the tag line: "A tale of crabs, cricket bats and catching your heart's desire in Jazz Age Western Australia."<br />
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Notably, Demelza Carlton is the author of dozens of books, including the provocatively titled <a href="http://amzn.to/2nfJAZ7" target="_blank"><i>The Rock Star's Virginity</i></a> and <a href="http://amzn.to/2jygFKH" target="_blank"><i>Melody Angel's Guide to Heaven and Hell</i></a>.<br />
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Oddly, the last book Fallon displayed as part of his latest "Do Not Read" list is not available on Amazon.com. (They have always been easily found through an Amazon search in the past.) He had a hard copy, so it must exist somewhere. The title was "What If You Are a Horse in Human Form," allegedly written by Jason the Horse. If any reader can find this unusual book for sale anywhere on the Internet, please note it in the comments below.<br />
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Here's the "Do Not Read" <a href="https://youtu.be/CuQfgk0pWrQ" target="_blank">video</a> from <i>The Tonight Show</i>:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CuQfgk0pWrQ" width="560"></iframe></blockquote>
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<blockquote>
<iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="50" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?o=1&p=288&l=ur1&category=gift_certificates&banner=1ZMTYQQCPDNJYWMYWR82&f=ifr&linkID=877817f067736d4b91f881cc4eb1e46f&t=ricksincerene-20&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20" style="border: none;" width="320"></iframe></blockquote>
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<br />Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-11781227991562209892017-08-17T00:25:00.000-04:002017-08-17T14:52:11.025-04:00Another 'Do Not Read' List from Jimmy FallonNoting that it is beach reading season, host of <i>The Tonight Show</i> Jimmy Fallon brought more books to the attention of his nationwide audience on August 16 -- with the admonition that these are books that they should not read. (Previous editions can be seen <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2014/09/jimmy-fallons-new-do-not-read-list.html">here</a> and <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2014/07/jimmy-fallons-do-not-read-list-of.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2014/05/odd-books-alaska-huge-ships-and-dadt.html">even earlier here</a>.)<br />
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Fallon has offered his "do not read" list several times over the past few seasons. In this edition, he chose an academic book, a children's book, a craft book, and a mystery, among others.<br />
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The mystery was <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2i6lHRg">The Penguin Who Knew Too Much</a></i> by Donna Andrews (noted on the front cover as author of <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2vKglhR">No Nest for the Wicket</a></i>). The book's description begins: <br />
<br />
<blockquote><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Knew-Much-Langslow-Mystery/dp/0312329423/ref=as_li_ss_il?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502941362&sr=1-1&keywords=the+penguin+who+knew+too+much&linkCode=li1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=0eab226b6a20d7a866c2be1b384dc5d1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Donna Andrews Jimmy Fallon Penguin mystery" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0312329423&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li1&o=1&a=0312329423" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Donna Andrews is taking us on another ride into the wonderful world of Meg Langslow, a world filled with laughter as well as the knotty problems Meg always seems to encounter and---somehow---solve. <br />
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Okay, maybe there are people in Antarctica with penguins in their basements, but in Virginia? Only Meg's dad could manage that one. A body down there---well, that's somewhat more likely.<br />
<br />
It turns out that explaining the penguins' presence is easy---Meg's dad volunteered to take care of the birds until the future of the bankrupt local zoo could be determined. But identifying the body in the basement proves a harder task---could it be, as Meg fears, that of the vanished zoo owner? </blockquote>Surprisingly -- or not -- <i>The Penguin Who Knew Too Much</i> is published by Minotaur Books, not by Penguin.<br />
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The academic book Fallon highlighted is called <a href="http://amzn.to/2vFzsv1"><i>Mathematics for Engineers</i></a> by Raymond W. Dull. Apparently a classic in its genre -- it was published in 1941 -- its plain gray cover represents its author's surname.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bathroom-Yoga-Jerri-Lincoln/dp/0982258518/ref=as_li_ss_il?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502941429&sr=1-1&keywords=Bathroom+yoga&linkCode=li1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=b3a10743ea1523a2720295cb8b49b4c9" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Bathroom Yoga Jimmy Fallon Do Not Read" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0982258518&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li1&o=1&a=0982258518" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />An exercise book was next on Jimmy Fallon's "do not read" list: <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2i9GfbQ">Bathroom Yoga</a></i> by Jerri Lincoln. In a pun-filled commentary, Fallon averred that the publisher was Little Brown but it's actually from Ralston Store Publishing. The cover suggests that the book is for "those who lack the time or space to do yoga anywhere else!" (Yes, including the exclamation point.) The cover photo looks like someone being held hostage in a 1970s private eye TV show.<br />
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Fallon also brought up a hobby book by John P. Adams called <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2uKnjpV">Bottle Collecting in New England: A Guide to Digging, Identification, and Pricing</a></i>. It was published in 1969 by the New Hampshire Publishing Company and I'd guess it's been out of print since 1970 -- though there was a sequel of sorts published by the same company in 1971, with the title <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2vKsQtR">Bottle Collecting in America. a Guide to Digging, Identification, and Pricing. a Companion Volume to Bottle Collecting in New England</a></i>. Perhaps Adams' earlier volume was a minor hit in its genre.<br />
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Fallon also chose to demonstrate the 1998 craft book, <a href="http://amzn.to/2vKMl5e" target="_blank"><i>Return of the Nose Masks</i></a> by Rick Meyerowitz. From the description on Amazon.com:<br />
<blockquote><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Return-Nose-Masks-Rick-Meyerowitz/dp/0761112448/ref=as_li_ss_il?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502941547&sr=1-1&keywords=Return+of+the+nose+masks&linkCode=li2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=fcb06180719a98aa68c24fa4e0de7dd7" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Nose masks Jimmy Fallon Do Not Read Rick Meyerowitz" border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0761112448&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" title="" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li2&o=1&a=0761112448" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Truly nutty ideas never die. They just lie in wait to come back when you least expect it. Exactly twenty years ago, those two wacky books of nasal disguises, Nose Masks I and Nose Masks II, appeared and America seemed to inhale them. There were nose mask parties, celebrities wearing nose masks, nose masks in parades. Today, like the Beetle, the yo-yo, and aviator shades, they're back. <i>Return of the Nose Masks</i> is wackiness for a whole new generation of grown-ups, children, and grown-ups with an inner child. Created by the original nose mask auteur, Rick Meyerowitz, here are 150 original costumes for the nose. Printed in four-color and perforated, there is the Fat Cat, Cooool Cat, and Cocktail Cat. Lawrence and Lenore of Arabia. The Velvet Frog. Nefertootsie and the Tut Mask. The three freedoms--Freedom to Sing, Freedom to Dance, Freedom to Shop. Holiday nose masks, underwater nose masks, career noses masks, modern art nose masks. There are little square nose masks and big vertical nose masks. Mustache nose masks, nose ring nose masks, and the Big Tongue page. Even the Buddha, for that mood of spiritual longing. The nose masks come with instructions for any-size nose on any-age face.</blockquote><br />
Finally, Fallon showed us a children's book -- although the cover design and title suggest the contents may be inappropriate for younger ages. The book, by Jon Buller, is called <a href="http://amzn.to/2vFswy9"><i>Mike and the Magic Cookies</i></a>. Published 25 years ago by Grosset & Dunlap, it comes with praise from the <i>Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books</i>: "This is the kind of book that . . . kids will eat right up--which is exactly what you want in an easy-reader. Cartoon illustrations remininiscent [<i>sic]</i> of Syd Hoff join right in with the suburban lunacy."<br />
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I guess you'll have to judge for yourself. <br />
<blockquote><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B0107137LA&asins=B0107137LA&linkId=f95591d0242c6b53aa26bb2e9aaefe0e&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true"></iframe></blockquote><br />
<b>Update:</b> Here's <a href="https://youtu.be/qcLRCmNRsx4">a video</a> of Jimmy Fallon's "Do Not Read" list from last night:<blockquote><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qcLRCmNRsx4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></blockquote><br />
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Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-72420784980911164332014-12-09T04:20:00.000-05:002017-12-16T22:58:57.180-05:00Author Interview: Ronald D. Lankford on 'Sleigh Rides, Jingle Bells, and Silent Nights'<br />
The idea for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ronald-D-Lankford/e/B001HOLC5U/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=POXC4QQYUUT7MDHG" target="_blank">Virginia author Ronald D. Lankford</a>'s 2013 book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813044928/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0813044928&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=JEQXM73HQF5LGVRP" target="_blank">Sleigh Rides, Jingle Bells, and Silent Nights: A Cultural History of American Christmas Songs</a></i>, was sparked by his childhood memories.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813044928/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0813044928&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=JEQXM73HQF5LGVRP" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0813044928&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0813044928" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />“I grew up listening to Christmas songs in the 1960s – '<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I2IQDI/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000I2IQDI&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=UK2FRQ6XDW7QFWZT" target="_blank">Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,</a>' Gene Autry, the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002B634O/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0002B634O&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=SITC7MAIPYGDEMUO" target="_blank">Lennon Sisters</a>,” he told me during an interview at this year's Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville. “Christmas music was always there, so it was an important family ritual.”<br />
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The book looks mostly at holiday songs written since the 1930s, when the first secular, commercial Christmas tunes appeared, written by Tin Pan Alley composers and lyricists and distributed through the still new medium of phonograph recordings. Citing music industry historians, the author places 1934 as the year that saw the launch of the first modern Christmas standards, “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012U4W1U/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0012U4W1U&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=Y5F62O4FB3RXD7T4" target="_blank">Santa Claus Is Coming to Town</a>” and “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ZVLP9G/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003ZVLP9G&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=LDVQHVSOHJ4AFHS6" target="_blank">Winter Wonderland</a>” (the latter of which <a href="http://www.metrolyrics.com/winter-wonderland-lyrics-christmas-carols.html" target="_blank">never mentions Christmas</a>). <br />
<br />
Referencing Irving Berlin's “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008YYSDSU/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008YYSDSU&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=ZBK5MFLHR6HWENUP" target="_blank">White Christmas</a>,” recorded by Bing Crosby, and Mel Tormé and Robert Wells' “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002HMHXN6/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002HMHXN6&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=UEFTEUUEQKKUJXWW" target="_blank">The Christmas Song</a>,” recorded by Nat “King” Cole, Lankford writes that this kind of holiday song, “performed by a well-known singer, pressed on a 78rpm record, and sold on the mass market, would create a new category of popular music.”<br />
<br />
Although Americans celebrate several holidays every year, from New Year's Day to Independence Day to Thanksgiving, only Christmas has a wide range of music associated with it.<br />
<br />
One reason for that, Lankford surmises, “is that Christmas seems to last longer than most holidays. Every year we have four or five weeks after Thanksgiving” when Christmas is celebrated, not just one day on December 25.<br />
<br />
Another reason, he added, is “that it probably just holds a bigger place in our hearts than other holidays. A lot of people that are religious love it for religious reasons and a lot of [people who] aren't involved in religious aspects of Christmas also love it.”<br />
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For his research, Lankford acknowledged that his sources included Stephen Nissenbaum's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679740384/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0679740384&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=HHQKJCDNHWZRWPLQ" target="_blank">The Battle for Christmas</a></i> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743218752/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0743218752&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=IZMB7AJTBAQ4M6JB" target="_blank">Jody Rosen's book-length study</a> on the origins and influence of “White Christmas,” but he also relied on Penne Restad's 1995 book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195109805/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0195109805&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=LTW7B43VZL2YXI3N" target="_blank">Christmas in America: A History</a></i>. These and other sources emphasized nostalgia as a theme of Christmas music and other holiday traditions.<br />
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“Mostly what I was looking at was source material in the United States. If you want to understand the songs coming out in the '40s and '50s, you need to see how Christmas was sort of invented in the 19th century by the American middle class. Over and over again we come back to family, home. Dickens was very popular in the United States in the 1840s,” he pointed out, “so I wanted to go back and be grounded in these sources.”<br />
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He writes that “the first theme to emerge in the modern Christmas song was nostalgia.” He notes that recordings like “White Christmas” and “The Christmas Song” (already mentioned), as well as “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AWZ69JY/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00AWZ69JY&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=SUJEV362RAQY6UGR" target="_blank">Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas</a>” (from <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005IA9K2G/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005IA9K2G&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=YVGSDQ4EXWEA42QM" target="_blank">Meet Me in St. Louis</a></i>) and “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BJEZQ9G/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00BJEZQ9G&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=VRJYLPWUGWJWLRQJ" target="_blank">I'll Be Home for Christmas</a>” – all from the early 1940s – were songs that “connected with listeners by offering wistful images of the American past.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4S1guOLI2gcDDRSHhOhkgPwVdfVMS_qpDe7F4jU4nRAbwQWLqj-zkhSkxQhzjuSG0Ci_3QykoBW-TMLUk5cjn-oNa3zItzHzUw8jEySPTkWIrcrAB18f__mKDTXnJU1nQJIZTg4jmio8/s1600/Lankford-VaBook.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4S1guOLI2gcDDRSHhOhkgPwVdfVMS_qpDe7F4jU4nRAbwQWLqj-zkhSkxQhzjuSG0Ci_3QykoBW-TMLUk5cjn-oNa3zItzHzUw8jEySPTkWIrcrAB18f__mKDTXnJU1nQJIZTg4jmio8/s1600/Lankford-VaBook.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Ronald D. Lankford</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Starting in the late 1940s and continuing through the 1970s, however, novelty songs (“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” for instance) began to push nostalgia to the side, and songs “focusing on the holiday blues and hard times” started to get radio play.<br />
<br />
The counterintuitive holiday popularity of mournful songs like “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002Q9XL4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0002Q9XL4&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=AYRPMS4WIYMVNXIC" target="_blank">Blue Christmas</a>” and “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005NNJG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00005NNJG&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=FASL3A6FX2SKDWHJ" target="_blank">Pretty Paper</a>,” he told me, really took off in the 1960s, when “everything changes.”<br />
<br />
John F. Kennedy <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2014/01/author-interview-tina-towner-pender-on.html" target="_blank">was assassinated</a> in November 1963, mere weeks before Christmas, he said.<br />
<br />
Then, the next year, <a href="http://ricksincerethoughts.blogspot.com/2016/08/from-archives-civil-liberties-lawyer.html" target="_blank">The Beatles arrived in America</a> and “music changes quite a bit. Then we start having a variety of revolutions in the street and so the mood of the country changes.”<br />
<br />
At the same time, he said, “what we think of as family begins to change. We tend to think of family as being a mother at home, father at work, and two children – or people used to think that [but] that started to change in the Sixties and, I think, it was a little disorienting.”<br />
<br />
As a consequence, Lankford noted, “most of our classic songs end by 1963. [In] the Sixties and the Seventies, what we have instead are a lot of cartoons basically aimed at children,” such as <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002JUFPUE/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002JUFPUE&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=JOH6RFD6YY5UMZTR" target="_blank">Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas</a></i> and <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M0JU3G0/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00M0JU3G0&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=YX5SML7GW2P67DDB" target="_blank">A Charlie Brown Christmas</a></i>.<br />
<br />
Many popular singers, even rock stars, record at least one Christmas album during the course of their careers, yet creating a hit holiday song is elusive even for artists normally at the top of the charts.<br />
<br />
“It's a really difficult trick to pull,” Lankford explained.<br />
<br />
“In one way, most Christmas songs are traditional, so you're going back again to family and home, and so people don't want anything really 'out there.' <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00137RG9M/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00137RG9M&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=TXLJIFD3UW7XODFH" target="_blank">Weird Al's Christmas songs</a>,” for example, “have not become classics.”<br />
<br />
On the other hand, he said, “if you want to be a classic, you need something that people will play year after year, so it has to have something distinctive enough that it's going to stand out from every other song.”<br />
<br />
Those, he said, “are the two qualities they would have to have” – simultaneously conservative and distinctive – “to get played five weeks a year and not wear themselves out.”<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Q1TSKK/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=a565a438e46bc5506df21831fcb8983b" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B001Q1TSKK&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=li2&o=1&a=B001Q1TSKK" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />The most unexpected thing Lankford found in his research was that <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Q1TSKK/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001Q1TSKK&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=EMV5U42AC5V5GSRU" target="_blank">Elvis Presley's first Christmas recordings</a> met resistance and negative criticism.<br />
<br />
“I was surprised,” he said, at “how controversial Elvis Presley's Christmas album and [his] Christmas music was in 1957.”<br />
<br />
Today, he explained, it seems like Presley is an American icon: “baseball, apple pie, and Elvis.”<br />
<br />
Yet in the late 1950s, “when he was touring, he was very controversial and his album was very controversial.”<br />
<br />
Lankford recounted a “wonderful story” told to him by a dentist in his hometown of Appomattox.<br />
<br />
The dentist's mother was an Elvis fan who "went downtown to buy the Christmas album when it came out. She brought it home, took it out of its sleeve, started to play it, and she didn't get finished with one cut when she said, 'This is the worst thing I have ever heard in my life.' She put it back in its sleeve, took it back to the drug store, and asked for her money back.”<br />
<br />
It's easy to see why that controversy of 57 years ago seems puzzling today. This time of year, the tracks on Elvis Presley's Christmas album are played over and over on the radio. Reissued several times, that LP has sold more than 23 million copies and is now considered the best-selling Christmas album in recording industry history.<br />
<br />
In addition to his most recent book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ronald-D-Lankford/e/B001HOLC5U/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=NDTABVBBUDFVTPME" target="_blank">Ronald D. Lankford</a> is the author of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810872684/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0810872684&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=DEURETDZ57FS4QAH" target="_blank">Women Singer-Songwriters in Rock: A Populist Rebellion in the 1990s</a></i> (2009) and <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0825673003/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0825673003&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=VDRPDLMEKYI4QCIK" target="_blank">Folk Music USA: The Changing Voice of Protest</a></i> (2005). He also edited <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FDVCV5I/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FDVCV5I&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=FLO4BHM5IZR3Y5RG" target="_blank">Should the Voting Age Be Lowered?</a></i> (2007).<br />
<b><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813044928/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0813044928&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=HSVYJBUGTTCAPAI7" target="_blank"><i>Sleigh Rides, Jingle Bells, and Silent Nights: A Cultural History of American Christmas Songs</i></a>, by Ronald D. Lankford. University Press of Florida, October 2013. Hardcover, 264 pp., $21.95. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FDXFTFU/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FDXFTFU&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=RGJJKLUDWEGA62FX" target="_blank">Kindle edition</a>, $10.49.</b><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="60" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?o=1&p=40&l=ur1&category=books&banner=01C0Z0F1JZARPFRFG382&f=ifr&linkID=2cf8f30aa42c38746a7c2ca1b3c43e85&t=ricksincerene-20&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20" style="border: none;" width="120"></iframe><iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="90" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?o=1&p=20&l=ur1&category=audible&banner=1W459C79TNG7PMDQ3S02&f=ifr&linkID=4acad7801c136eddb8b81a708617d7ea&t=ricksincerene-20&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20" style="border: none;" width="120"></iframe><iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="60" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?o=1&p=40&l=ur1&category=books&banner=01C0Z0F1JZARPFRFG382&f=ifr&linkID=2cf8f30aa42c38746a7c2ca1b3c43e85&t=ricksincerene-20&tracking_id=ricksincerene-20" style="border: none;" width="120"></iframe></blockquote>
Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-7489908367168219172014-12-02T09:31:00.000-05:002015-03-21T17:57:02.247-04:00Author Interview: Economist Adam Smith Describes How 'Bootleggers & Baptists' CooperateJust over three decades ago, economist Bruce Yandle, then working for the Federal Trade Commission, published an article in the journal <i>Regulation</i> headlined “<a href="http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/1983/5/v7n3-3.pdf">Bootleggers & Baptists: The Education of a Regulatory Economist</a>,” which noted how groups presumably at odds with each other often collaborate, wittingly or unwittingly.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1939709369/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1939709369&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=VISIBHAL3MPO2SPI" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1939709369&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1939709369" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />In 1999, in <a href="http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/1999/10/bootleggers.pdf">another piece for <i>Regulation</i></a> (PDF), Yandle described more fully the phenomenon after an additional 16 years of observation:<br />
<br />
“Durable social regulation,” he said, “evolves when it is demanded by both of two distinctly different groups.” Those groups are the “Baptists,” a shorthand term for those who make a moral or ethical case for legislation or regulations, and the “bootleggers,” a term that applies to economic interests who benefit financially from legislation or regulations. (A synonym for “bootlegger” might be “rent-seeker.”)<br />
<br />
“'Baptists' point to the moral high ground and give vital and vocal endorsement of laudable public benefits promised by a desired regulation,” wrote Yandle, while “'Bootleggers' are much less visible but no less vital. Bootleggers, who expect to profit from the very regulatory restrictions desired by Baptists … are simply in it for the money.”<br />
<br />
What Yandle did was to apply public-choice economic theory to regulatory politics and, in the process, create a colorful concept that has been cited thousands of times since 1983 in attempts to explain how government makes rules.<br />
<br />
Fast-forward to 2014, when Yandle, now a retired dean at Clemson University, has collaborated with his grandson, economist Adam Smith of Johnson & Wales University. Their new book is called <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1tspuaV" target="_blank">Bootleggers & Baptists: How Economic Forces and Moral Persuasion Interact to Shape Regulatory Politics</a></i>. The two authors spoke about it at <a href="http://www.cato.org/events/bootleggers-baptists-how-economic-forces-moral-persuasion-interact-shape-regulatory-politics" target="_blank">a forum hosted by the Cato Institute</a> in Washington on October 9, 2014.<br />
<br />
<b>'Aligned interests'</b><br />
After the forum, I asked co-author Adam Smith a few questions about the book and his research.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGoXQspPCnO7-Ujd7y9k-O9RLdaCTvkQaQOCXo5Gj125ProgMy5uA_df20MdISu8sUT04yvmUrwi0BjxcG83BleIJMKoOdINkWJZecUwUhBK7DiNnWEaHL-OXz3JmlqHF-vX5EEh9D7mU/s1600/Smith-Yandle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGoXQspPCnO7-Ujd7y9k-O9RLdaCTvkQaQOCXo5Gj125ProgMy5uA_df20MdISu8sUT04yvmUrwi0BjxcG83BleIJMKoOdINkWJZecUwUhBK7DiNnWEaHL-OXz3JmlqHF-vX5EEh9D7mU/s1600/Smith-Yandle.jpg" height="156" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Adam Smith speaks at the Cato Institute </i></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Smith explained that the term “bootleggers and Baptists” originated during alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s, when “you had bootleggers and Baptists with aligned interests” even if they did not realize it.<br />
<br />
Baptists, he explained, proclaimed “Down with legalized distribution of alcohol!” because they saw drinking as morally detrimental. Bootleggers, too, proclaimed “Down with legalized distribution of alcohol!” because Prohibition raised the price of illegal liquor and fed more profits to the bootleggers.<br />
<br />
“It was a boon to the bootleggers,” Smith explained, “and the Baptists were kind of oblivious to that situation.”<br />
<br />
Broadening the concept to include other kinds of regulations, Smith said, “what we see today in our modern political economy [are] many, many manifestations of the same kinds of strange bedfellows.”<br />
<br />
More and more, he said, “we're seeing that those bedfellows are recognizing one another and coming together to form even more powerful would-be bootlegger/Baptist coalitions.”<br />
<br />
There is also a relationship between “bootleggers and Baptists” and “crony capitalism,” when government grants preferential treatment to certain, well-connected businesses.<br />
<br />
Smith said that, in the book “we call it 'bootlegger/Baptist' capitalism instead of crony capitalism.”<br />
<br />
He added that “what I hope the book shows is that cronyism is more than just a bootlegger. That's the only thing that's usually recognized: There's just some special interest group.”<br />
<br />
Yet, he explained, “a special interest group cannot move forward without moral cover, or at least can't get much out of the political domain without the Baptist” providing a beneficent reason for legislation, “and so we have to call attention the bad work Baptists are doing in creating opportunities for cronyism.”<br />
<br />
<b>Avenues for research</b><br />
Both Smith and Yandle acknowledge that their book, while expanding upon the original thesis Yandle put forth in 1983, opens up new opportunities for further research by other economists and social scientists.<br />
<br />
“There's obviously a lot of empirical work to be done,” Smith explained.<br />
<br />
He pointed to “all these social regulations that people aren't looking at in terms of econometric work in the same way that they are [looking at] economic regulations, because we just don't think of it that way. We don't think of environmental policies and health-and-safety standards as giving money to anybody.”<br />
<br />
Instead, he said, people “think of those as in the public interest. In other words, the Baptists have succeeded in convincing us of that fact but that's just not true. There are a lot of groups that benefit from that legislation and we need to put them under the microscope. We have to put those regulations under the microscope in the same way that we do economic regulations.”<br />
<br />
Smith added that “this is a useful framework for recognizing groups” that may have self-serving (but hidden) economic interests in promoting new regulations.<br />
<br />
“Never count a good bootlegger down,” he quipped. “A lot of times when we can't see the bootlegger, it doesn't mean they're not there. Seeing the Baptists can call attention to the fact that maybe there's a bootlegger standing in the shadows” during a debate about imposing new rules or restrictions on human action.<br />
<i><br />
</i> <a href="http://amzn.to/1tspuaV" target="_blank"><i>Bootleggers & Baptists</i>, by Adam Smith and Bruce Yandle,</a> was published by the Cato Institute on September 7, 2014.<br />
<br />
<i>(This interview appeared, in slightly different form, <a href="http://exm.nr/1nlocM9" target="_blank">on Examiner.com on October 14</a>, 2014.) </i><br />
<br />
<blockquote><a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></blockquote>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-38549642477505378122014-09-12T00:18:00.000-04:002015-03-21T17:57:21.885-04:00Jimmy Fallon's New 'Do Not Read' ListOnce again, <i>The Tonight Show</i> host Jimmy Fallon has sent viewers scurrying to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=I4FGYOECIQ34SAEF">Amazon.com</a> to track down the odd and repulsive books he has added to his end-of-summer "Do Not Read" list.<br />
<br />
In the episode that aired September 11, 2014, Fallon showed his audience six books, each of which leads one to ejaculate, "WTF?"<br />
<br />
First on Fallon's list was <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809255359/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0809255359&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=LV4CZEUBNMI35DQF">The Complete Book of Exercise Walking</a></i>, by Gary D. Yanker. The book has a 2013 publication date, but the edition that Jimmy Fallon showed on air seemed much older, perhaps dating to the 1970s.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004T32KS4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004T32KS4&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=AQTITRU5CLIWI5NC" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B004T32KS4&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B004T32KS4" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Fallon introduced his second non-recommendation by saying it would be of special interest to the guys in the audience. It was <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004T32KS4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004T32KS4&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=AQTITRU5CLIWI5NC">The Joy of Uncircumcising</a></i> by Jim Bigelow, Ph.D. Fallon joked that the book used to be longer but the end was cut off. It's intriguing that this book is in its second edition -- though even that is 20 years old, with a 1994 publication date.<br />
<br />
Third on Fallon's list was the 25-year old <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520053907/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0520053907&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=ICTWEYTDZJDYDF4H">Natural History of Vacant Lots</a></i>, by Matthew F. Vessel and Herbert H. Wong. Amazon's summary notes: "Vacant lots aren't really vacant: a surprising number of plants and animals live in the left-over spaces in our cities. In this fascinating guide, authors Vessel and Wong provide a broad introduction to the unique ecosystems that can survive in the urban environment."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809428830/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0809428830&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4MOY2J56YI4JSOMJ" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0809428830&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0809428830" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Fallon drew attention to the unappetizing cover photo on his fourth choice, a cookbook called <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809428830/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0809428830&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4MOY2J56YI4JSOMJ">Snacks & Sandwiches</a></i> and attributed to by Time-Life Books Editors and photographer Aldo Tutino. Whatever it is on the cover, it does not seem to be either a snack or a sandwich.<br />
<br />
Finally, with a book whose title is a punchline all by itself, Jimmy Fallon chose a 2007 volume aimed at readers "preschool and up," <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0836881346/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0836881346&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=2SKOSNYMCHAASAZK">Let's Explore Uranus</a></i> by Helen Orme and David Orme. (Could it be a follow-up to <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/192913214X/?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&condition=used&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&qid=1410494916&sr=1-1&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=G4RQHYQSAA4T5WDL">Everybody Poops</a></i>?)<br />
<br />
Jimmy Fallon's "Do Not Read" List is a regular feature on <i>The Tonight Show</i> on NBC-TV. Check out the July 9, 2014, edition <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2014/07/jimmy-fallons-do-not-read-list-of.html">here</a>.<br />
<blockquote><iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="125" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?t=ricksincerene-20&o=1&p=21&l=ur1&category=kcdhol13&banner=1ARQV8RDGBESSZ3MD082&f=ifr&linkID=HSPDTEOZ7GZTWGWH" style="border: none;" width="125"></iframe></blockquote><blockquote><a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></blockquote><br />
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Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-5245729029070512532014-07-10T00:24:00.000-04:002015-03-21T17:57:41.875-04:00Jimmy Fallon's 'Do Not Read' List of Strange Summer Books - July 9, 2014Every once in a while, <i>The Tonight Show</i> host Jimmy Fallon presents his audience with books that he does not recommend. In fact, he calls it the "Tonight Show 'Do Not Read'" list. <br />
<br />
Fallon showcased several odd books in the episode that aired on the evening of July 9, noting that during the summer, people are looking for "hot beaches, hot bods, and hot books."<br />
<br />
The books Fallon found were not hot; instead, they were:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">-- A "how-to" book for children, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0263054659/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0263054659&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=JKBGXRAEDNJMIKY6" target="_blank">Playing with Puppets</a></i>, by Lis Paludan (1974), which Fallon described as "definitely not creepy at all."<br />
<br />
-- A reference book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A1K6JVS/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00A1K6JVS&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=5CR7RPNT5HRQB77F" target="_blank">List of Persons Whose Names Have Been Changed in Massachusetts: 1780-1883</a></i> (published in 2012). Out of 420 pages, he found two people to highlight --Nellie E. Freeman, who changed her name to Nellie Booby, and Louisa Andrews, who changed her name in 1879 to Lotta Hardon.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0882896830/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0882896830&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=QURPJJVBZT4JPJ2J" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0882896830&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0882896830" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />-- Another "how-to" book, this one about adultery: <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0978988183/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0978988183&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=SA4G4IZEOSELTEID" target="_blank">How to Cheat and Not Get Caught</a></i>, by Elizabeth Sylvince (2007).<br />
<br />
-- A memoir, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1420880985/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1420880985&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=TG5OTB5WGVH4SHI5" target="_blank">Granny's Old Hands: What Has She Been Doing With Them? Granny's Coming Out of the Closet</a></i>, by Celestine Starks (2006).<br />
<br />
-- A 1976 cookbook called <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0912800372/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0912800372&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=HFB7RFZRHNDIBU2P">Entertaining With Insects, Or: The Original Guide to Insect Cookery</a></i> by Ronald L. Taylor, Barbara J. Carter and John Gregory Tweed, which includes recipes for Cricket Ramaki, Tillamook Tarts, Salted Garlic Mealworms, Cricket Crisps, and Sauteed Bacon-Pepper Bees.<br />
<br />
-- The last book on Fallon's list was a history book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0882896830/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0882896830&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=QURPJJVBZT4JPJ2J">Bald Knobbers: Vigilantes on the Ozarks Frontier</a></i>, by Mary Hartmann and Elmo Ingenthron (1988). I'm sure the term "bald knobbers" meant something different in 19th century Arkansas than it would today in, for instance, the adult cinema industry.</blockquote>For another snippet from Jimmy Fallon's list of forbidden books, <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2014/05/odd-books-alaska-huge-ships-and-dadt.html">check out this post</a> from May 2014.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="60" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?t=ricksincerene-20&o=1&p=42&l=ur1&category=amazonhomepage&f=ifr&linkID=BLTSQMNPBHZSH3YH" style="border: none;" width="234"></iframe><br />
<br />
<a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-24590938420227676702014-06-13T20:55:00.000-04:002015-03-21T17:57:56.671-04:00Author Interview: Craig Shirley on 'December 1941: 31 Days that Changed America and Saved the World'<br />
Memorial Day weekend seems an appropriate time to revisit Craig Shirley's 2011 book, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1l8lWFs">December 1941: 31 Days that Changed America and Saved the World</a></i>.<br />
<br />
Shirley spoke about his book at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville earlier this year. After <a href="http://youtu.be/KpCpTUjew-k" target="_blank">his presentation</a>, I asked the author about the genesis of the book and what he learned while researching the history of the early days of World War II in the United States.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihc__pEykJpKUf1BjE_GiayTnVSfx7o6n6y2QJI8rsRW9Jxg1USJPMZG_SLMxBXVvKjCOjulVxKUP9ac7yYKCn3bI5iDYyVoKH0wmmzjTIK5F8QYOy3UEPoHfHLQf1Qlf6WNR4c_qWY6Q/s1600/Craig-Shirley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihc__pEykJpKUf1BjE_GiayTnVSfx7o6n6y2QJI8rsRW9Jxg1USJPMZG_SLMxBXVvKjCOjulVxKUP9ac7yYKCn3bI5iDYyVoKH0wmmzjTIK5F8QYOy3UEPoHfHLQf1Qlf6WNR4c_qWY6Q/s1600/Craig-Shirley.jpg" height="120" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Craig Shirley</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The idea for writing the book came from his family, he said.<br />
<br />
When he was growing up in upstate New York, around the dining room table he heard “the stories about all the things that were going on with the Victory Gardens and the oleo[margarine] and the fake coffee and food shortages and all the sacrifices the American civilians made” during the war.<br />
<br />
Moreover, he explained, his uncle had enlisted and, “was shot down and killed in the Pacific.”<br />
<br />
Shirley's family had a tradition of military service going back to the American Revolution.<br />
<br />
Two of his ancestors fought at Breed's Hill and Bunker Hill in Boston. Another ancestor “was with Washington all the way from 1775 to 1783. He was at Valley Forge, he contracted small pox there and lost an eye.”<br />
<br />
That same great-grandfather fought at Monmouth, Boston, and Trenton. “He was in a number of battles under Washington's command. He was just a militiaman, one of the regular army from Connecticut. I don't think he achieved any rank.”<br />
<br />
While his family members served in the military, Shirley said, “I wanted to do something from the standpoint of the civilians and how they were affected by the events of December 7.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Deep and broad research</b><br />
To research the material that ended up in the book, Shirley explained he “cast as wide a net as possible. We went to all the Roosevelt materials and uncovered documents that hadn't been reported on previously. We went through [Secretary of War] Henry Stimson's papers at Yale, we went through [Secretary of State] Cordell Hull's papers.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595554572/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1595554572&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1595554572&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1595554572" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Shirley and his research team also explored “Eleanor Roosevelt's papers and diaries, all the White House documents we could get our hands on, all the War Department” documents that were available.<br />
<br />
“On top of all that,” he said, he looked at memos, diaries, and “thousands and thousands of newspaper articles” as well as “shortwave dispatches because at the time, CBS and NBC both had shortwave commercial broadcast stations and so the transcripts of those shortwave broadcasts” are archived.<br />
<br />
Newspapers were a particularly rich source of information.<br />
<br />
“There were some reporters and columnists who were just terrific and I like to use their material. It's interesting that there probably wasn't a newspaper reporter in 1941 who wasn't an excellent writer. They were all very good writers.”<br />
<br />
In 1941, there were about 2,000 daily newspapers across the country, Shirley explained, compared to about 500 today. New York City had nearly 20 daily newspapers, he said, “including ethnic papers, [like] Polish papers. Washington, I think, had seven daily newspapers at the time.”<br />
<br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>'Great man theory'</b><br />
What surprised Shirley in the course of his research was “coming to the conclusion that Franklin Roosevelt was a better man than I thought he was. I am a political conservative, but I am also a historian and I have to look at things objectively.”<br />
<br />
The New Deal, he asserted, “in terms from the standpoint of turning the economy around, was a failure [but] it did help the morale of the American people, there's no doubt about that.”<br />
<br />
There is also no doubt, he added that, “without Winston Churchill [and] without Franklin Roosevelt, Adolph Hitler and the empire of Japan would have ruled the known world.<br />
<br />
Churchill and Roosevelt, he concluded, “really are part of what Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish historian, postulated as the great man theory of history, and these truly were great men.”<br />
<br />
An earlier version of this interview <a href="http://bit.ly/Dec1941">appeared on Examiner.com</a>, and see <a href="http://where-are-the-copy-editors.blogspot.com/2011/12/by-far-best-typo-of-2011.html">my comments on <i>December 1941</i></a> on <i><a href="http://where-are-the-copy-editors.blogspot.com/">Where Are the Copy Editors?</a></i>.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="60" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?t=ricksincerene-20&o=1&p=42&l=ur1&category=fathersday&banner=0A6SF0G3RSETM01VR002&f=ifr" style="border: none;" width="234"></iframe><br />
<br />
<a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br />
</blockquote>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-60383387002927753522014-05-20T09:42:00.000-04:002015-03-21T17:58:18.916-04:00Odd Books: Alaska, Huge Ships, and DADT?<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0741410524/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0741410524&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4YPURMDYWXWAYWEM" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0741410524&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0741410524" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />On <i>The Tonight Show</i> last night, host Jimmy Fallon did a comedy bit involving books with odd titles or subjects.<br />
<br />
One of the books he featured was John B. Thompson's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0741410524/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0741410524&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=FN77DNYJZAHZXUKD" target="_blank">Alaska as It Used to Was</a></i>, which was chosen, no doubt, for its grammatically-challenged title.<br />
<br />
Out of curiosity, I looked up <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0741410524/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0741410524&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=FN77DNYJZAHZXUKD" target="_blank">Alaska as It Used to Was</a></i> on Amazon.com. Nothing stood out until I scrolled down to "Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed." That caught my eye because there were only two items listed, neither of which seems to have any connection to <i>Alaska as It Used to Was</i>, nor to each other.<br />
<br />
See?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq5aSwbJPlA0TZCM4WB6kiKG3CsCiAWtz2eXa_hClt37ifeDOhCNGTsK1sNg17-llv75Sy9aLpIjmz7j_v5IrDRzacyZp3OXNHmfT-pFJkDOnE3MlYSt0ygeFXSAML1Onsdl_vBu-jgIPd/s1600/Amazon-Alaska.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq5aSwbJPlA0TZCM4WB6kiKG3CsCiAWtz2eXa_hClt37ifeDOhCNGTsK1sNg17-llv75Sy9aLpIjmz7j_v5IrDRzacyZp3OXNHmfT-pFJkDOnE3MlYSt0ygeFXSAML1Onsdl_vBu-jgIPd/s400/Amazon-Alaska.JPG" height="188" width="320" /></a></div><br />
The two books are <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0870334336/?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&condition=used&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&qid=&sr=&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=FVUFGG3PZDCVQHXZ" target="_blank">How to Avoid Huge Ships</a></i><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> by John W. Trimmer and <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1612346979/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1612346979&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=6RMQPAQVNQ3LZNYC">Soldier of Change: From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement</a></i><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1612346979" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> by Stephen Snyder-Hill.<br />
<br />
Big boats? Gay soldiers? Alaska's past? Two of these things are not like the others.<br />
<br />
In the comments section below, I will entertain suggestions about what the relationship among these three books might be. There must be some connection, but it escapes me.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><i><a href="http://bit.ly/usedtowas">Cross-posted from Rick Sincere News & Thoughts</a>.</i><br />
<br />
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<br />
<a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br />
</blockquote>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-68980205572314253702014-05-13T09:40:00.000-04:002015-03-21T17:58:37.782-04:00Author Interview: Dale Carpenter on 'Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas'<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393062082/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0393062082&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0393062082&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0393062082" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Speaking at <a href="http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9059" target="_blank">a book forum sponsored by the Cato Institute</a> on March 16, 2012, Washington Post editorial writer (and former Supreme Court reporter) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805089225/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0805089225&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">Charles Lane</a> said the “true importance” of the 2003 high court decision in <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZS.html" target="_blank"><i>Lawrence v. Texas</i></a> “is as a cultural milestone” and that it reflected how the country’s “zeitgeist had radically shifted since 1986,” the year of <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0478_0186_ZS.html" target="_blank"><i>Bowers v. Hardwick</i></a>, a decision that upheld Georgia’s sodomy law and which was overturned by <i>Lawrence</i> 17 years later.<br />
<br />
Lane was responding to comments by University of Minnesota law professor Dale Carpenter, who was presenting his new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393062082/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0393062082&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas</i></a>. For his own part, Carpenter compared the Lawrence decision, in its effect on the lives of gay and lesbian Americans, to <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0347_0483_ZS.html" target="_blank"><i>Brown v. Board of Education</i></a> and its effect on African-Americans and race relations.<br />
<br />
After his presentation, Carpenter talked to me about his book, what he learned in his research, and the larger impact of the Supreme Court’s decision now and in the future.<br />
<br />
Carpenter, who teaches courses in constitutional law and sexual orientation and the law, began writing <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393062082/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0393062082&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">F<i>lagrant Conduct</i></a><i> </i>more than eight years ago. Its first form was an article for the <i>Michigan Law Review</i> (which he describes as “a microcosm of this book”) that ended up in the hands of a senior editor at W.W. Norton and Company, who suggested he turn the article into a book and eventually published it.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMAsIZM3ok-KiRNtE2U4nVB_0e1WOpOHtNVc9gMIn0HwzdUZvZ9NgPHSzQVwdv1do_w0Oiapi0qDi7N0ApHDS_6I24IwlBEvC5dVXRZVA9DPIKgHkL-oqVF7zUPEjdspkt791ZsCYIk9I/s1600/Carpenter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMAsIZM3ok-KiRNtE2U4nVB_0e1WOpOHtNVc9gMIn0HwzdUZvZ9NgPHSzQVwdv1do_w0Oiapi0qDi7N0ApHDS_6I24IwlBEvC5dVXRZVA9DPIKgHkL-oqVF7zUPEjdspkt791ZsCYIk9I/s1600/Carpenter.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dale Carpenter</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Writing the book required “quite a bit of legwork and research,” including dozens of interviews with people involved with the case, from the officers who arrested John Lawrence (whose name is in the case title) and Tyron Garner to law clerks and prosecuting attorneys, gay-rights activists in Texas, and, finally, Lawrence himself, who granted Carpenter his only interview about the case and its circumstances, just six months before he died.<br />
<br />
Their meeting, Carpenter said, “was emotional.”<br />
<br />
U.S. Navy veteran Lawrence, he explained, “never got a trial. He never got to talk about his side. He never got to tell his story and” talking to Carpenter “was his chance finally to tell his story when he knew he was in poor health and would not live long.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>No sex, please</b><br />
<br />
The most startling finding from Carpenter’s research was that, contrary to the long-assumed facts of the case, Lawrence and Garner were not having sex when they were arrested on September 17, 1998 – a date, Carpenter pointed out, that Americans mark as Constitution Day.<br />
<br />
Though they were not having sex, Carpenter said, “the police nevertheless arrested them and hauled them off to jail.”<br />
<br />
That arrest set off a chain of events that eventually led to the Supreme Court’s historic decision, <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZO.html" target="_blank">written by Justice Anthony Kennedy</a> with <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZD.html" target="_blank">a strong dissent</a> by Justice Anton Scalia and another, <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZD1.html" target="_blank">extremely brief dissent</a> by Justice Clarence Thomas, who pronounced the law “silly” and said if he were a legislator, he would vote to repeal it.<br />
<br />
That Lawrence and Garner were not engaged in a sex act – and thus violating the Texas “Homosexual Conduct Law” – “was not widely known anywhere” and that information was first revealed by Carpenter in his 2004 <i>Michigan Law Review</i> article but, he noted modestly, “it is becoming more widely known now because of the book.”<br />
<br />
The law that Lawrence was arrested under enabled police officials – in this particular case, the Harris County sheriff’s department – “to use their authority in an abusive and arbitrary way,” and, by overturning the Texas sodomy law and other, similar laws on the books in other states, the Supreme Court limited that form of police misconduct.<br />
<br />
“The larger impact” of the <i>Lawrence</i> ruling, Carpenter explained, “ was getting rid of a precedent that wreaked havoc in the lives of gay men and lesbians in every area of life from family law to the military to relationship recognition, denying them their children, housing, employment, and everything else that we expect” as American citizens.<br />
<br />
“The other legacy of this case,” he added, “may be yet to come in the form of more formal recognition of same-sex relationships and protection for families headed by same-sex couples. “<br />
<br />
That, he concluded, “we’ll have to see.”<br />
<br />
<i>Adapted from an <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/flagrant-conduct-author-dale-carpenter-discusses-how-sodomy-laws-ended">earlier article on Examiner.com</a>.</i><br />
<br />
<blockquote><a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></blockquote>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-62236273784785195602014-05-02T09:22:00.000-04:002015-03-21T17:59:07.980-04:00Author Interview: James Robinson on 'Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty'One year ago today, in <a href="http://mercatus.org/events/james-robinson-lecture-event-why-nations-fail" target="_blank">his first speaking engagement at George Mason University</a>, Harvard political scientist James A. Robinson paid a compliment to the school by noting its “distinct intellectual atmosphere.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307719219/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0307719219&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0307719219&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307719219" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Robinson appeared at the Arlington campus of GMU at the invitation of the Mercatus Center to discuss his 2012 book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307719219/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0307719219&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty</i></a>, which he co-wrote with MIT's Daron Acemoglu.<br />
<br />
In his lecture, Robinson explained how his and Acemoglu's empirical research had led to a predictive theory about how nations develop economically and politically. All countries, he said, can be plotted on a matrix using the categories “inclusive” (politics and economics) and “extractive” (politics and economics).<br />
<br />
Success or failure for nations depends on whether they have inclusive or extractive institutions, Robinson said, and these institutions have their origins deep in history – although circumstances can change through the adoption and adaptations of new, better institutions.<br />
<br />
As an example of this kind of change, Robinson noted that 200 years before the Industrial Revolution, England was an economic backwater on the edge of Europe. Elizabeth I's defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was unexpected and unpredictable, yet by 1788, Great Britain was Europe's most formidable economic power and the world's leading colonizer. This was the result of institutional change in law and society.<br />
<br />
After signing books for fans and admirers, Robinson clarified and expanded some of his remarks in an interview with me. (It turns out we were both students at the London School of Economics at about the same time.)<br />
<br />
He explained that although the Spanish and English colonies in the Americas both began with the same model, the English experience at Jamestown, Virginia, set North America down a more economically prosperous path than the colonies in South America trod.<br />
<br />
The circumstances in Virginia and, for instance, Buenos Aires, “were very different,” Robinson said.<br />
<br />
“Because there were very few indigenous people [who were] organized in a very different way in Virginia as compared to, say, the central valley of Mexico, a very different type of society emerged.” This society was “based on creating incentives and opportunities for European [settlers] rather than exploiting indigenous people,” which was the case in Latin America.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Mysterious development?</b><br />
<br />
Asked whether there is a difference in the questions of “why nations fail” and “why nations succeed,” Robinson replied that “they're two sides of the same coin.”<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSN-JCFUsFWIMleP38Mc61wklIN0-CL7NIppoQscImA2_LRhKeE-TYhVX7f3We-Ss1CiypYAXRs-zSpVkT5B84G7Qs3uyxoqwyEeBLxWVoHX0Z0P2t82OwK-wZKdT3_tVHBJ8L_uIJtig/s1600/JamesRobinson-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSN-JCFUsFWIMleP38Mc61wklIN0-CL7NIppoQscImA2_LRhKeE-TYhVX7f3We-Ss1CiypYAXRs-zSpVkT5B84G7Qs3uyxoqwyEeBLxWVoHX0Z0P2t82OwK-wZKdT3_tVHBJ8L_uIJtig/s1600/JamesRobinson-a.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Robinson</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The reason his book has the title it does is that he and his co-author “don't think of economic development as being mysterious.”<br />
<br />
Instead, he said, “to us, the puzzling thing is, why on earth don't poor countries that ought to be able to generate huge amounts of wealth and improve the living standards of their people” do so by investing in education, adopting technologies, and securing property rights?<br />
<br />
“Why don't they do it?,” he repeated. “We've always found failure more puzzling. Why is it people don't take advantages of these huge opportunities?” This question is particularly salient when countries have abundant mineral resources, climates and soils conducive to agriculture, and convenient locations for trade and industry -- yet still fail to develop economically.<br />
<br />
Many commentators on economic development – <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Sowell/e/B000APQ7EI/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&qid=1367717052&sr=1-2-ent&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">Thomas Sowell</a>, for instance – focus on cultural values as the basis for success or failure. Robinson and Acemoglu take a different approach by emphasizing institutions.<br />
<br />
Their approach, Robinson said, came about “mostly because of the empirical work we've done, all the scientific research. We've always found measures of institutions to have much more predictive power than different measures of culture.”<br />
<br />
He conceded that “there's a problem of language here. When I talk about institutions, I don't just mean things written down, like the U.S. Constitution.”<br />
<br />
He gave the example of the limit of two presidential terms, which was established as “a social norm that lasted for 150 years” by George Washington, before Franklin Roosevelt parted with the tradition and, eventually, the Constitution was amended to make the tradition statutory.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/039395241X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=039395241X&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">Nobel laureate economist Douglass North</a>, he pointed out, “talks about informal institutions, social norms, and I think that's enormously important. It's not just about written-down laws. Social norms and informal institutions are quite similar to what a lot of people talk about when they talk about culture.”<br />
<br />
When Robinson and Acemoglu talk about culture, however, “it's not about values or normative beliefs or normative principles or religious principles. We don't find that to be important; we don't think it's important” in terms of predictive value for economic success or failure.<br />
<br />
Why Nations Fail is published in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307719219/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0307719219&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">hardback by Crown Business</a> and in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1846684307/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1846684307&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">paperback by Profile Books Ltd</a>.<br />
<br />
<i>Adapted from an <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/james-robinson-discusses-why-nations-fail-at-george-mason-university" target="_blank">earlier article on Examiner.com</a>.</i><br />
<br />
<blockquote><a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></blockquote>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-54889999176198830462014-04-29T09:26:00.000-04:002015-03-21T17:59:22.570-04:00Author Interview: Kurt Loder on 'The Good, the Bad and the Godawful: 21st Century Movie Reviews'<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zhJ5wVX_vJpCqWcBoLqTnA0qPRnk3vPRndKTCMTbawwkbaQiNvIM6QJgAkFCc2rEOrKsWCBqedGAgu0_0u4-87_3S8H5D9Rbs2R3LQ9GFxp4nBb-5uyakol5W50sOSYVZ03JBX_FF38/s1600/Loder-Reason_Dec2011-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zhJ5wVX_vJpCqWcBoLqTnA0qPRnk3vPRndKTCMTbawwkbaQiNvIM6QJgAkFCc2rEOrKsWCBqedGAgu0_0u4-87_3S8H5D9Rbs2R3LQ9GFxp4nBb-5uyakol5W50sOSYVZ03JBX_FF38/s1600/Loder-Reason_Dec2011-a.jpg" height="200" width="195" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kurt Loder</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Just over two years ago, longtime <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452298563/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0452298563&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">MTV</a> news anchor Kurt Loder published a book-length collection of film criticism entitled <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031264163X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=031264163X&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">The Good, the Bad and the Godawful: 21st-Century Movie Reviews</a></i> (St. Martin's Griffin, 2011).<br />
<br />
Shortly after it was released, I interviewed Loder at a book party hosted by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002PXVYZA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002PXVYZA&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Reason</i> magazine</a> in Washington. We only had a short time available for our conversation, so I challenged the author to describe his book in 30 seconds or less -- basically, give the elevator pitch.<br />
<br />
In reply, Loder said the book is "a collection of more than 200 movie reviews that I’ve done for <a href="http://mtv.com/">MTV.com</a> and <a href="http://reason.com/">Reason.com</a> (my current employer) over the last seven years."<br />
<br />
There are, he said, "a lot of the usual blockbusters and stuff but there are a lot of movies that people may have missed, like <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00470MG06/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00470MG06&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">Exit Through the Gift Shop</a></i> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001BPJJ82/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001BPJJ82&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>The Fall</i></a>."<br />
<br />
While there are "so many good movies that come out," he said, "if [audiences] don’t make it the first week, they disappear. So there are a lot of them in there, [but] there are a lot of movies that are really dreadful,” as well.<br />
<br />
The book, he added, “covers a lot of movies that you may have forgotten or never seen.”<br />
<br />
His hope is that the reader might find “a lot of movies in there that [he] might be inspired to go see.”<br />
<br />
Loder said that he has “always loved movies” and that one of the earliest motion pictures he remembers seeing was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009NHC0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00009NHC0&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>The Thing</i></a>, when he was six years old, in 1951. His love of the movies is what motivates him to write about them.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031264163X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=031264163X&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=031264163X&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=031264163X" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />He writes his reviews, he explained, from the perspective of a fan.<br />
<br />
“I’m not a film critic,” he pointed out.<br />
<br />
“I think 'film critics' are like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1598531093/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1598531093&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">Pauline Kael</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307271749/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0307271749&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">David Thomson</a> and people like that who spent their entire lives in dark rooms. I haven’t done that.”<br />
<br />
Still, he said, “I try to keep up. I see a lot of movies but I have a disorganized knowledge.”<br />
<br />
When writing about movies, Loder explained, he decides whether he likes a film or not and then he tries to be entertaining in his review.<br />
<br />
Asked if popular culture has a significant impact on politics or vice versa, Loder paused before answering.<br />
<br />
“Politics has an impact on all of us -- a malign one, quite often.”<br />
<br />
While he found the question interesting, he said, he did not know how popular culture had an impact on politics. <br />
<br />
Loder then suggested that, “when you see people in Congress playing games on their laptops" while they are in session, then "that’s sort of an impact.”<br />
<br />
Although – or perhaps because – he “loves movies,” Loder demurred when asked to name his favorite film.<br />
<br />
“Ah, there’s no such thing!” he exclaimed.<br />
<br />
He did, however, name the “best movie” he saw in 2011, Terrence Malick’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005HV6Y5W/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005HV6Y5W&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>The Tree of Life</i></a>, which stars Brad Pitt.<br />
<br />
“It’s a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant movie. It’s really, really good. Everybody should go see it.”<br />
<br />
Loder mentioned two other recent films before the interview came to a close: Jason Reitman’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FITIK0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005FITIK0&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Young Adult</i></a>, featuring Charlize Theron, “which was really good,” and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0059XTTW8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0059XTTW8&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy</i></a>, starring Gary Oldman, which he “didn’t like very much.”<br />
<br />
However, he said, “there have actually been a lot of good movies at the end of the year, as there always are.”<br />
<br />
<i>Adapted from an <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/libertarian-writer-kurt-loder-on-movies-the-good-the-bad-and-the-godawful">earlier article on Examiner.com</a>.</i><br />
<br />
<blockquote><a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br />
</blockquote>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-44391566296419097192014-04-22T09:50:00.000-04:002015-03-21T17:59:40.045-04:00Virginia Festival of the Book 2014 - First Amendment & Free Speech<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300190875/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0300190875&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0300190875&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0300190875" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />At the 2014 Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, there was a panel discussion about freedom of speech sponsored by the <a href="http://www.tjcenter.org/" target="_blank">Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression</a> and moderated by the center's director, Josh Wheeler. The panelists were authors Floyd Abrams and Ronald K.L. Collins, who talked about free speech and the First Amendment, and how protecting freedom of speech sometimes comes in conflict with other values of a liberal society.<br />
<br />
Attorney Floyd Abrams is a partner with the law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP and the author of a recent book, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1jmVraZ">Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment</a></i>.<br />
<br />
Ron Collins teaches law at the University of Washington and is the author of a book about Abrams, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1gdlmTW">Nuanced Absolutism: Floyd Abrams & the First Amendment</a></i>.<br />
<br />
Here is <a href="http://youtu.be/gv_-iQ2-KeE">video of the full discussion</a>, recorded in the Charlottesville City Council Chambers on March 22, 2014:<br />
<blockquote><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/gv_-iQ2-KeE" width="420"></iframe></blockquote>To read my interview with Abrams conducted immediately after the panel discussion, <a href="http://exm.nr/1ezrh4t">visit Examiner.com</a>. To hear the full audio interview with Abrams and another interview with Josh Wheeler about the Virginia Festival of the Book event as well as the <a href="http://bit.ly/1hBECfl" target="_blank">annual Muzzle Awards</a>, visit Bearing Drift's <a href="http://bearingdrift.com/2014/03/29/what-the-hell-is-this-a-joke/">March 29 podcast</a> on "The Score."<br />
<br />
For more posts about the Virginia Festival of the Book, <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/search/label/Virginia%20Festival%20of%20the%20Book">look here</a>.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="60" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?t=ricksincerene-20&o=1&p=42&l=ur1&category=amazonhomepage&f=ifr" style="border: none;" width="234"></iframe><br />
<br />
<a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br />
</blockquote>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-74389517906981618642014-04-20T14:36:00.000-04:002015-03-21T18:00:06.600-04:00Virginia Festival of the Book 2014 - Stephen Jimenez<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586422146/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1586422146&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1586422146&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1586422146" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />During a Virginia Festival of the Book panel on March 20 called "<a href="http://www.vabook.org/site14/program/details.php?eventID=159#sthash.DJJiNRZh.dpuf">Shifting Identities</a>" at the Jefferson Madison Regional Library in Charlottesville, investigative journalist Stephen Jimenez discussed his 2013 book, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1j9daXX">The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard</a>.</i><br />
<br />
In the book, Jimenez explores alternative explanations for the 1998 beating and murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, which at the time was thought to be an unprovoked gay bashing and hate crime.<br />
<br />
Shepard's murderers were convicted of second degree murder but not a hate crime. Jimenez looks into a seedy underworld connection between Shepard and one of his killers, Aaron McKinney. According to Jimenez, both Shepard and McKinney were involved in the crystal meth trade in Colorado and Wyoming.<br />
<br />
Here is <a href="http://youtu.be/SR8z1xpIans">video</a> of Jimenez's presentation and his answers to questions posed by audience members:<br />
<blockquote><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/SR8z1xpIans" width="420"></iframe><br />
</blockquote>My post-panel interview with Jimenez can be <a href="http://exm.nr/PfAyFu">read on Examiner.com</a>.<br />
<br />
The other participants in the "Shifting Identities" panel at the Central JMRL were Laura Krughoff, who read from her 2013 novel, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0983021945/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0983021945&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20">My Brother's Name</a></i>, and Ariel Gore, who discussed her memoir, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0986000795/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0986000795&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20">The End of Eve</a></i>, which was published just days earlier in March 2014.<br />
<br />
To see previous posts about the Virginia Festival of the Book, <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/search/label/Virginia%20Festival%20of%20the%20Book">look here</a>. <br />
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<blockquote><iframe src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?t=ricksincerene-20&o=1&p=42&l=ur1&category=topeastergifts&banner=1KKNXHR4RR7T3Y3MHXR2&f=ifr" width="234" height="60" scrolling="no" border="0" marginwidth="0" style="border:none;" frameborder="0"></iframe><br />
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<a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br />
</blockquote>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-59904581221494260232014-04-20T11:03:00.000-04:002015-03-21T18:00:49.110-04:00Virginia Festival of the Book 2014 - World War II<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595554572/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1595554572&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1595554572&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1595554572" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />One of the panels at the 2014 Virginia Festival of the Book was called "<a href="http://www.vabook.org/site14/program/details.php?eventID=73#sthash.yb8A0zYw.dpuf">World War II: Little Known Stories</a>." It took place on March 20 in the Charlottesville City Council Chambers.<br />
<br />
Moderated by Art Beltrone, author of Vietnam Graffiti, the panel featured two authors -- Cheryl Jorgensen-Earp, who wrote <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1611860822/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1611860822&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20">Discourse and Defiance under Nazi Occupation</a></i>, which is about the German occupation of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands; and Craig Shirley, who wrote <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595554572/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1595554572&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20">December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World</a></i>.<br />
<br />
Largely for reasons of time, <a href="http://youtu.be/KpCpTUjew-k">this video</a> focuses on Craig Shirley's presentation and his responses to questions from the audience.<br />
<blockquote><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/KpCpTUjew-k" width="420"></iframe></blockquote><br />
For a quirky take on Shirley's book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595554572/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1595554572&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">December 1941</a></i>, check out <a href="http://where-are-the-copy-editors.blogspot.com/2011/12/by-far-best-typo-of-2011.html">this post from 2011</a>.<br />
<br />
Previous posts about the Virginia Festival of the Book in earlier years <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/search/label/Virginia%20Festival%20of%20the%20Book">can be seen here</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>UPDATE:</b> C-SPAN2 <a href="http://www.booktv.org/Program/15499/2014+Virginia+Festival+of+the+Book+Panel+World+War+II.aspx" target="_blank">recorded the entire panel discussion</a> and will air the video on BookTV on Saturday, May 3, at 2:35 p.m. (ET) and Sunday, May 4, at 1:05 a.m. <br />
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<iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="60" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?t=ricksincerene-20&o=1&p=42&l=ur1&category=topeastergifts&banner=1KKNXHR4RR7T3Y3MHXR2&f=ifr" style="border: none;" width="234"></iframe><br />
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<blockquote><a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></blockquote><br />
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Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-82797181703634197882014-04-19T10:07:00.000-04:002015-03-21T18:01:07.405-04:00Virginia Festival of the Book 2014 - World PoliticsLast month in Charlottesville, the Virginia Festival of the Book hosted more than 200 programs on a wide range of topics, including authors of fiction and non-fiction, literary agents, and children's book authors.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1442223618/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1442223618&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1442223618&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1442223618" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />I attended with video camera in hand to record some of the proceedings -- it's impossible to attend more than a handful of events during the five-day festival -- and belatedly post them here.<br />
<br />
The first program I attended was on Wednesday, March 18, on the topic "<a href="http://www.vabook.org/site14/program/details.php?eventID=42#sthash.SOrRQqWw.dpuf">The United States in the World</a>."<br />
<br />
The panel discussion was sponsored by the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia and moderated by Sorensen's executive director, Bob Gibson, a former political reporter for <i>The Daily Progress</i>.<br />
<br />
The panelists were UVA political scientist James Ceaser, talking about his book, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1kJwiJr">After Hope and Change: the 2012 Elections and American Politics</a></i>; University of Mary Washington Professor Stephen Farnsworth on <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Famzn.to%2FNvhxh8&redir_token=T2kjQM8ovJ9odDm9UVz7aKUzbsV8MTM5Nzk1OTY3OEAxMzk3ODczMjc4">The Global Presidency: International News and the U.S.Government</a></i>; Stanford historian Robert Rakove discussing <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Famzn.to%2F1dr5qsq&redir_token=F-vDccnrl1aYe0yxgzHJVgAdfrF8MTM5Nzk2MDQyNEAxMzk3ODc0MDI0">Kennedy, Johnson and the Nonaligned World</a></i>; and former Ambassador Francis Rooney, who presented <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Famzn.to%2F1gB1Zzc&redir_token=8vpcMJnicb6epYS0S36I47dg8SN8MTM5Nzk2MDM2MEAxMzk3ODczOTYw">The Global Vatican: An Inside Look at the Catholic Church, World Politics, and the Extraordinary Relationship Between the United States and the Holy See</a>.</i><br />
<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/q4edsxIdgDM">James Ceaser spoke first</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/q4edsxIdgDM" width="420"></iframe></blockquote>(For my post-panel interview with Ceaser, <a href="http://exm.nr/1g2USUZ">visit Examiner.com</a>.)<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/7tBTNEc1ops"><br />
Stephen Farnsworth spoke next</a>, about how foreign news media organizations view the American president and U.S. foreign policy:<br />
<blockquote>Previous posts about the Virginia Festival of the Book in earlier years <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/search/label/Virginia%20Festival%20of%20the%20Book">can be seen here</a>.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7tBTNEc1ops" width="420"></iframe></blockquote><br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/3NTbR2DfnRg">Robert Rakove then discussed</a> his new book about U.S. policy toward the non-aligned world in the 1960s, focusing on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations:<br />
<blockquote><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/3NTbR2DfnRg" width="420"></iframe></blockquote><br />
The <a href="http://youtu.be/ndzbqyeJQVs">fourth speaker was Francis Rooney</a>, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See during the administration of George W. Bush:<br />
<blockquote><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ndzbqyeJQVs" width="420"></iframe></blockquote><br />
(My post-panel interview with Ambassador Rooney is also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Fexm.nr%2F1gcyZDN&redir_token=nebN-qr0FdF72feyZTDhTx77Ykl8MTM5Nzk2MDEzNEAxMzk3ODczNzM0">available to read on Examiner.com</a>.)<br />
<br />
Finally, the <a href="http://youtu.be/B6JGg8ReGtQ">four panelists fielded questions</a> from the audience on the mezzanine of the University of Virginia book store:<br />
<blockquote><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/B6JGg8ReGtQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></blockquote><br />
<br />
Previous posts about the Virginia Festival of the Book in earlier years <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/search/label/Virginia%20Festival%20of%20the%20Book">can be seen here</a>.<br />
<br />
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<blockquote><iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="60" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?t=ricksincerene-20&o=1&p=26&l=ur1&category=amazonhomepage&f=ifr" style="border: none;" width="468"></iframe><br />
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<a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br />
</blockquote><br />
Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-6023318576151944092014-02-04T09:40:00.000-05:002015-03-21T18:01:38.089-04:00Author Interview: Jeffrey Frank discusses his 'Ike & Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage'Perhaps the most amusing sentence in Jeffrey Frank's <a href="http://amzn.to/XwpBNB" target="_blank">book about Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon</a> comes during a discussion of whether and how Eisenhower would endorse Nixon's 1968 bid for the presidency.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Z7NU_etUuImre-88IfSeBfBc_QVRv4eT9QGdqEQjpiJrZCRiIhU5Mf2Uj9MhuyAGn5uUeJuxTeV24bDs1t7lWlTi_jmwJslWjN4jcLvchiy0R1R5sMAKaSBCAloYrNmKACoe89iLtyM/s1600/Jeffrey_Frank_Mar22-2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Z7NU_etUuImre-88IfSeBfBc_QVRv4eT9QGdqEQjpiJrZCRiIhU5Mf2Uj9MhuyAGn5uUeJuxTeV24bDs1t7lWlTi_jmwJslWjN4jcLvchiy0R1R5sMAKaSBCAloYrNmKACoe89iLtyM/s1600/Jeffrey_Frank_Mar22-2013.jpg" height="145" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jeffrey Frank</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Frank recounts that veteran White House aide Bryce Harlow, who served both presidents, wrote in a memo that "without an immediate statement that Ike, as Harlow phrased it, was 'hot for Dick,' voters might 'be pen to the snide argument that as a good Republican you are only doing what you have to do.'"<br />
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It seems to me that were Eisenhower truly "hot for Dick," snide remarks would have been the least of his worries.<br />
<br />
Although the idea that any voter or political operative was ever "hot for Dick" is debatable -- in the sense that Dick Nixon lacked the kind of adoring fans that one associates with Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama -- the only president to resign his office continues to fascinate students of twentieth-century history. Jeffrey Frank followed his own fascination into a book-length examination of Nixon's relationship with a man he worked for and admired, Eisenhower.<br />
<br />
The recent <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416587217/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1416587217&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">paperback release</a> of <a href="http://amzn.to/XwpBNB" target="_blank"><i>Ike & Dick: A Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage</i></a> seems like an appropriate moment to revisit an interview I had with Frank almost a year ago at the Virginia Festival of the Book, which <a href="http://exm.nr/109Ccqj" target="_blank">originally appeared on Examiner.com</a>. (<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ike-and-dick-portrait-of-a-strange-political-marriage-by-jeffrey-frank/2014/01/31/cf23e6e2-8830-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html" target="_blank">Robert Mitchell reviewed</a> the paperback edition in Sunday's <i>Washington Post</i>.)<br />
<br />
President Dwight Eisenhower was “sui generis,” according to biographer Jeffrey Frank, a politician with no equivalent on the current political scene.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/8vma4xPZA08" target="_blank">Frank spoke about his new dual biography</a> at the 2013 Virginia Festival of the Book, <a href="http://youtu.be/EXrwbLvuHKk" target="_blank">sharing the stage with another Eisenhower biographer</a>, <a href="http://exm.nr/YNcXZS" target="_blank">Evan Thomas</a>, to discuss the life and career of the 34th U.S. president.<br />
<br />
Following the panel discussion, Frank told me that “we have people like Nixon” today but not like Eisenhower.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416587217/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1416587217&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1416587217&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1416587217" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />“We don't have five-star national heroes running around any more today,” he explained. “They just don't happen. I wish we did.”<br />
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Frank's interest in writing about Eisenhower and his vice president and eventual successor, Richard Nixon, was sparked by how he could use their stories to explore the whole of the 20th century.<br />
<br />
“It was a way to look at the whole century,” he said. “It was a way to look at these two men who couldn't have been less alike, one of whom was born in 1890 who grew up in Abilene when Civil War veterans were running around town, and one of whom died in 1994 after the Cold War was over.”<br />
<br />
Eisenhower and Nixon, he said, were “two totally different men, both of whom became president," whose lives spanned "the whole century." They each also had fascinating personalities.<br />
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As he set out on research for his book, Frank explained, “the thing that struck me from the beginning was they never lost touch. Other vice presidents and presidents go their separate ways, even more recent ones. Reagan and Bush didn't have much to do with each other, Clinton and Gore.”<br />
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Yet Eisenhower and Nixon “never really lost touch. That was a unique thing” that was partly due to their family connections – Nixon's daughter Julie married Eisenhower's grandson David shortly after Nixon was elected president in 1968, just months before Eisenhower died.<br />
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In addition to the family ties, he added, both men were “so deeply engaged in the world” and that engagement “brought them together.”<br />
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Asked about his transition from being a journalist – senior editor at the <i>New Yorker</i> and writer for the <i>Washington Post</i> – Frank said that “being a historian is simply being a journalist in long form. I take my facts very seriously.”<br />
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Consequently, he explained, “the transition happened very naturally. I was working at the New Yorker and I started doing this and the more I did it the more I realized I couldn't do it justice by having two jobs at the same time so I made a leap. That was the transition.”<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote><iframe border="0" frameborder="0" height="250" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?t=ricksincerene-20&o=1&p=12&l=ur1&category=turbotax13&banner=1KWPPD7PPKSQNJE5C9R2&f=ifr&lc=pf4" style="border: none;" width="300"></iframe></blockquote></div><br />
<blockquote><a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></blockquote><br />
Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-17833545809034804432014-01-28T09:23:00.000-05:002015-03-21T18:01:56.814-04:00Author Interview: Larry Sabato calls John F. Kennedy a cautious and conservative president<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjizZ4PjW9BTrQtTFst7XANpmERJQ7nmPHS-RJhIIxrCgcSMkSnABnMzLsBE5mbGwdUepxhJJVoDUoj5wnUeOhB12mpOaDciH2jl_dq7VUQo-lgeHBCrXUCQY9ILhs-b9M6Rtl7qWM203o/s1600/Sabato-Oct14-2013-square.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjizZ4PjW9BTrQtTFst7XANpmERJQ7nmPHS-RJhIIxrCgcSMkSnABnMzLsBE5mbGwdUepxhJJVoDUoj5wnUeOhB12mpOaDciH2jl_dq7VUQo-lgeHBCrXUCQY9ILhs-b9M6Rtl7qWM203o/s200/Sabato-Oct14-2013-square.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Larry Sabato</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Last October, Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia moderated a panel discussion about November 22, 1963, featuring three witnesses to that day's assassination of John F. Kennedy and two authors of books on the topic.<br />
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Sabato and the UVA Center for Politics hosted “The Kennedy Half Century” in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom on October 14, where the panelists included <a href="http://exm.nr/1bilLB4" target="_blank">Wesley Buell Frazier</a>, a co-worker of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas School Book Depository; Sid Davis, a journalist for Westinghouse Broadcasting at the time who rode in the presidential motorcade's press bus; James C. Bowles, in 1963 a communications supervisor for the Dallas Police Department and later sheriff of Dallas County.<br />
<br />
The panel also featured former <i>Washington Post</i> reporter Jefferson Morley, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0700617906/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0700617906&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA</i></a>; and Henry Hurt, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805003606/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0805003606&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy</i></a>. (Coincidentally, Hurt is the father of Virginia's Fifth District congressman, Robert Hurt, whose constituency includes Charlottesville and UVA.)<br />
<br />
After the two-hour discussion, Sabato spoke with me about his 2013 book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1620402807/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1620402807&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy</i></a>, which was published on October 15 with an eye toward attracting attention during the weeks running up to the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination. That book was also tied to a public-TV documentary film of the same name, which was later shown at the Virginia Film Festival and is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F43865Y/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00F43865Y&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">now available on DVD</a>.<br />
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The book, he said, “has been a five-year project,” which he undertook in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's murder.<br />
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Although people are quite interested in the assassination and its theories and counter-theories, Sabato emphasized that “two-thirds of the book is about President Kennedy's life, presidency, and then his legacy through nine successors.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1620402807/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1620402807&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1620402807&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1620402807" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />He defined “legacy” as “a kind of life after death. Kennedy's words and deeds were so powerful that his successors of both parties have used him to accomplish their own agendas, and some of them very cleverly.”<br />
<br />
The best, he said, was Ronald Reagan, who “used Kennedy even better than Lyndon Johnson did. Johnson distorted the Kennedy legacy, certainly by the middle of his full term.”<br />
<br />
Sabato said his aim in the book was “to focus more on President Kennedy's life than on his death” but he recognizes that “you can't understand the legacy until you understand the assassination because it created so much of the Kennedy myth.”<br />
<br />
By way of illustration, he recounted an anecdote he discovered that “stunned” him when he came across it.<br />
<br />
One day, Kennedy had invited a Lincoln scholar to the White House to give a lecture. He asked the historian, after the speech, whether Lincoln would be so highly regarded had he not been assassinated.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F43865Y/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00F43865Y&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00F43865Y&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00F43865Y" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
“The historian immediately answered, 'of course not' because he would have had to deal with the nitty-gritty of Reconstruction, he wouldn't have had the martyrdom conferred by assassination, and several other reasons,” Sabato explained, reporting that “Kennedy said, 'Exactly what I thought' and apparently made a comment to Jackie later on, 'well, if I'm going to die, this would be a good time.' That was shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis.”<br />
<br />
The same principle that affected Lincoln's legacy “applies to Kennedy,” said Sabato.<br />
<br />
“Had he actually faced the challenges of the sixties, had he lived through two full terms, for one thing, his marital infidelity could have come out. There were so many women, it's amazing that it didn't come out during his short presidency. All kinds of things could have happened.”<br />
<br />
By Sabato's estimation, Kennedy would not “be nearly as highly regarded,” in part because “presidencies tend to deteriorate in the last two or three years of an eight-year term.” Kennedy, he said, “never had to face that and he died at a peak moment of American power, economically and militarily.”<br />
<br />
Kennedy also would not have achieved as much of the domestic agenda that was completed by Lyndon Johnson, he said.<br />
<br />
Although Kennedy would have beaten Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election, Sabato explained, it would have been by a narrower margin than Johnson's eventual victory – “55-45 instead of 61-38.”<br />
<br />
The difference, he pointed out, was that “Kennedy was much more cautious than Johnson by nature. He would have stopped at the Civil Rights Act. I don't think he really would have pushed for the Voting Rights Act or the Open Housing Act unless he were forced to.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547585985/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547585985&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0547585985&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0547585985" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />In an assessment that meshes with Ira Stoll's thesis in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547585985/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547585985&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20">JFK, Conservative</a></i> (also published last October 15), Sabato characterized the 35th president as "cautious and conservative."<br />
<br />
As Sabato did research for his book, including interviews with people who worked in Kennedy's administration, what struck him was “just how cautious he was. He was fiscally cautious. The only reason he was worried about his across-the-board tax cut was because it would increase the deficit. He was a budget hawk in a lot of ways.”<br />
<br />
On foreign policy, too, he was “a hawk.”<br />
<br />
That was why Reagan cited Kennedy so often, Sabato said: “Because he could adapt that rhetoric to his fight against the Evil Empire.”<br />
<br />
He recalled that JFK had criticized the Eisenhower administration for a “missile gap” between the United States and the Soviet Union that turned out to be non-existent, “which he later admitted after the election. He was the hawk” in comparison to 1960 rival Richard Nixon.<br />
<br />
John F. Kennedy, Sabato concluded, “was a very different kind of Democrat. People have forgotten it. They've mixed him up with Bobby in the later years and then Teddy's career. Jack Kennedy was the moderate, or moderate-conservative, in the family.”<br />
<br />
(This article is a modified version of a piece that previously <a href="http://exm.nr/15DzrEB" target="_blank">appeared on Examiner.com</a>.) <br />
<br />
<blockquote><a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></blockquote>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-79655752272414643572014-01-21T09:37:00.000-05:002015-03-21T18:02:14.352-04:00Author Interview: Tina Towner Pender on witnessing John F. Kennedy's assassination<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiptgTHwRRyK3rO9Dq0UT0IPM8H1Xzl-Wyo71vop7oAsEzyCWdya8QiMlc7nxlXGFbSocbzILSqNHcfKVzbimHBpBr-llthfoJDttkrZzozSCQy_LnXah3nIA3gIpXzYvmtp8H2JqbEw-g/s1600/Tina-Towner-Nov09-2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiptgTHwRRyK3rO9Dq0UT0IPM8H1Xzl-Wyo71vop7oAsEzyCWdya8QiMlc7nxlXGFbSocbzILSqNHcfKVzbimHBpBr-llthfoJDttkrZzozSCQy_LnXah3nIA3gIpXzYvmtp8H2JqbEw-g/s200/Tina-Towner-Nov09-2013.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tina Towner Pender</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Tina Towner was the youngest person who photographed events at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, as President John F. Kennedy's motorcade drove by.<br />
<br />
Seconds before the assassin's shots rang out, the 13-year-old Towner's home movie camera ran out of film, but she captured the President and First Lady's car just as it turned the corner from Houston Street to Elm Street.<br />
<br />
Now Tina Towner Pender, she spoke to me at the 2013 Virginia Film Festival after a screening of a new documentary, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F43865Y/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00F43865Y&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>The Kennedy Half-Century</i></a>, co-produced by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. She had participated in a panel discussion along with UVA political scientist <a href="http://exm.nr/15DzrEB" target="_blank">Larry Sabato</a> and another witness to the Kennedy assassination, <a href="http://exm.nr/1bilLB4" target="_blank">Wesley Buell Frazier</a>, who on that infamous Friday was a 19-year-old co-worker of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas School Book Depository.<br />
<br />
The author of a 2012 book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1466287128/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1466287128&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Tina Towner: My Story as the Youngest Photographer at the Kennedy Assassination</i></a>, Pender described what happened to the short piece of movie film she took that day in Dallas.<br />
<br />
The raw footage, she explained during the panel discussion, was processed by local law enforcement authorities, who had put out a call for any movies or still photographs that may have been taken by onlookers but had not been developed yet. Her family did not receive the reel back for several weeks.<br />
<br />
Asked whether they thought it might have been tampered with, Pender said, “Not at the time.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1466287128/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1466287128&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1466287128&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1466287128" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />They did notice something anomalous right away, however.<br />
<br />
The assassination footage “was on the end of a reel of home movies so we knew we were going to have to watch the whole reel,” which included, she said, her “sister going off to college,” before they got to the newsworthy section.<br />
<br />
“When we got there, it ran out and there was no assassination film,” she explained, “and for a few seconds we thought we didn't have it, that they didn't send it back to us.” It turned out that “it had been cut from the rest of the film and it was there” on the reel but “it was just not spliced on to the end.”<br />
<br />
About a decade later, Pender and her father took the film to a lab to be examined at the request of some investigators.<br />
<br />
“My dad didn't let it out of our hands, so I went with him” to Jack White's lab in Fort Worth, Texas, she said.<br />
<br />
“There were about three or four people there looking at it while I was there and they turned to me and they said, 'Did you know that there's a splice in your film?'”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F43865Y/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00F43865Y&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00F43865Y&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00F43865Y" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Startled by the question, Pender asked them what they meant.<br />
<br />
The technician replied that “'there's a jump in the film and there's a splice,'” and showed it to her. Just at the point where the limousine is turning the corner, “you see a jump in the film.”<br />
<br />
That was not a surprise to her in itself, because “we knew that was there but we just figured it was some sort of a blip in the processing” but it was actually “spliced together. You could see where it was spliced and it was not using materials my dad would have [used]. It was more professionally done and it was hard to see this splice when you looked at it.”<br />
<br />
Pender conceded that she did not know “who did that and I don't know when it was done, either,” because the film had been in the possession of law enforcement in 1963, and <i>Life</i> magazine had borrowed it, along with 35mm slides her father had shot, for a feature in 1967.<br />
<br />
Later in the 1970s, Pender was questioned by investigators for the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, which concluded that Kennedy's assassination was the result of a conspiracy and not the sole responsibility of Lee Harvey Oswald. She said her encounter with them seemed peremptory.<br />
<br />
The meeting was “brief,” she explained.<br />
<br />
“They called and said they wanted me to bring them the original film and the slides that my dad took,” but in the event the investigators came to her office, where she was working.<br />
<br />
They questioned her “for about 15 or 20 minutes – maybe 30 -- but it didn't seem like that long. The questions were not very deep or probing. It almost was like they just wanted to get it done with and take the film and leave.”<br />
<br />
Neither Pender nor any member of her family who witnessed the assassination was called to testify before the Warren Commission, which was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the killing of John F. Kennedy.<br />
<br />
(This article appeared in slightly different form <a href="http://exm.nr/1iXkd03" target="_blank">on Examiner.com in</a> November 2013. Video of Tina Towner's panel discussion with Frazier and Sabato can be seen <a href="http://bit.ly/1azMedc" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://youtu.be/O5SopuWMZ2M" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br />
<br />
<blockquote><a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></blockquote>Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-30340433911833582942014-01-14T10:11:00.000-05:002015-03-21T18:02:36.798-04:00Author Interview: John W. Whitehead on 'A Government of Wolves'<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Sponsored post</i></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">"I use Grammarly's <a href="http://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker">plagiarism check</a> because sometimes I need to make sure I'm stealing only from myself."</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs93tetkr_H3BuOyeenKTGhd8_tClan0Rc4oR8G51nFzNKYBJbhNZl0sAYXRjQsnIzBFzFR89NK7luPZieWL91tzVyn7g_mXsDxbg1FH8IA_nsE_ohzQY5UKyCKhOX_55FtI87bEbJmLo/s1600/Whitehead-Jun25-2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs93tetkr_H3BuOyeenKTGhd8_tClan0Rc4oR8G51nFzNKYBJbhNZl0sAYXRjQsnIzBFzFR89NK7luPZieWL91tzVyn7g_mXsDxbg1FH8IA_nsE_ohzQY5UKyCKhOX_55FtI87bEbJmLo/s200/Whitehead-Jun25-2013.jpg" height="112" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>John W. Whitehead</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>After 40 years of practicing law, Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead says he is “creeped out” by the decline in respect for civil liberties in the United States.<br />
<br />
Whitehead, author of the 2013 book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590799755/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1590799755&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State</i></a>, spoke to me last June at the Barracks Road Barnes & Noble just before delivering a talk about his fears of increasing authoritarianism in the United States.<br />
<br />
A longtime civil-liberties attorney who once represented Paula Jones in her lawsuit against President Bill Clinton, he is also the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0977233189/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0977233189&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>The Freedom Wars</i></a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097723312X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=097723312X&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>The Second American Revolution</i></a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1402213077/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1402213077&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>The Change Manifesto</i></a>, in addition to a memoir, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0785269371/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0785269371&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Slaying Dragons</i></a>.<br />
<br />
Whitehead offered his assessment of the 2012-13 U.S. Supreme Court term that had ended just days before our interview with a pair of rulings about gay marriage.<br />
<br />
“One of the worst” terms ever, he said sharply.<br />
<br />
This year, he said, the Supreme Court “basically upheld policemen taking you into custody and not giving you your Miranda warnings.” The Court also, he explained, eroded the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination because “now by being silent it's evidence of guilt.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590799755/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1590799755&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1590799755&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1590799755" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />The Court, he added “approved the strip searching of anybody. If you're arrested now you can be strip searched by police for minor offenses like running a stop sign.”<br />
<br />
“What I'm seeing is a very statist Supreme Court,” Whitehead explained.<br />
<br />
“Some people say it's a right-wing Supreme Court. Well, I'm not sure it's right-wing. I put it more in the statist camp.”<br />
<br />
He said the voting rights decision (in Shelby County v. Holder) was made “as if racism's no longer in America. Well, what I'm seeing in America is, there is a lot of racism.”<br />
<br />
He gave the example of how “90 percent of the people who are arrested for marijuana offenses in New York City are either African-American or Hispanic but all evidence shows that whites smoke marijuana at a much higher rate than people with brown skin.”<br />
<br />
Justices of the Supreme Court, Whitehead cautioned, are “living in an ivory tower.” <br />
<br />
Supreme Court members are “chauffeured about in limousines and they don't know what we have to go through out here, especially if we're people of color.”<br />
<br />
On Fourth Amendment rights, Whitehead noted that “Justice [Antonin] Scalia, whom I've been critical of in the past, and the women on the Supreme Court have been great in their dissents.”<br />
<br />
Four instance, he said, those four justices objected “to the forced taking of DNA from people now. If you're arrested for anything, they can go into your body and take your DNA.”<br />
<br />
The DNA decision is part of what Whitehead calls “the new movement toward bodily probing.”<br />
<br />
He explained that, “in large cities across the country, police are stopping men on the street and doing rectum searches, sometimes causing bleeding. This is without a warrant, without arresting them.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097723312X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=097723312X&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=097723312X&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=097723312X" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />He gave the example of how recently in Texas, “two women were pulled over for throwing a cigarette out of a car. The policeman accused them of smoking marijuana” but when he found no cannabis in the car, “he called for back up, [who] did vaginal and rectum searches on the women without changing their gloves.”<br />
<br />
Those Texas police officers, he said, have “been sued for a million and a half – and they should have been sued.”<br />
<br />
Offering advice to citizens, Whitehead warned, “I just say, be alert. Let's read the Bill of Rights again. Most people don't even know what's in the Bill of Rights. It's 462 words but most people have never read it. Can you believe that? 462 words, you can read it in less than five minutes.”<br />
<br />
Because “we're not teaching [the Constitution] in school anymore, people don't know” what it says.<br />
<br />
“If you're stopped on the street and they want to do a really weird search on you,” Whitehead advised, “assert your Fourth Amendment rights.” The police “have to have probable cause.” Before they begin a search, he said, citizens should ask, “Am I doing something illegal, officer?”<br />
<br />
With regard to <i>A Government of Wolves</i>, which was released at just about the same time that Edward Snowden's leaks about the National Security Agency (NSA) began making worldwide headlines, Whitehead said the book includes an examination of the NSA's activities.<br />
<br />
"I started studying them in the 1980s, when some evidence came up that they were actually already doing domestic snooping, which they're not supposed to do."<br />
<br />
The book explores "what I call the electronic concentration camp, because we're all watched now. The FBI has admitted to downloading our phone calls. This is American citizens" they are spying on "without probable cause" and without "following the Fourth Amendment."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1402213077/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1402213077&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1402213077&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1402213077" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Whitehead said he wanted to respond to the frequent question, "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then why should I worry?"<br />
<br />
People should worry, he said, "for a couple reasons."<br />
<br />
The first is that "in America we believe in the rule of the law. We believe in the Fourth Amendment, our Constitution, the right to free speech."<br />
<br />
He pointed out how the Rutherford Institute had "helped servicemen who have been arrested for doing Facebook posts critical of the government."<br />
<br />
Those men, he said, "are asserting their rights, by the way, and that's good to see."<br />
<br />
A second reason people should worry, Whitehead continued, is "the militarization of the police is a very scary thing. Eighty thousand SWAT team raids occur across the United States annually, up 30,000 from ten years ago. These are black-armed troopers going through doors of people's homes for something like an ounce of marijuana."<br />
<br />
As a response to those who say "we have nothing to hide," he mentioned how he cites attorney Harvey Silverglate's book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594035229/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1594035229&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent</i></a>, in his own book.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594035229/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1594035229&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1594035229&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1594035229" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />"That's a great book," he said, in part because it demonstrates "the over-criminalization of America."<br />
<br />
Citing examples from the Rutherford Institute's portfolio, Whitehead explained that he and his colleagues have "defended people who want to sell goat – no, excuse me, not sell, but give -- goat cheese away to their friends. These are farmers" who have been prosecuted for trading in foods unapproved by the government.<br />
<br />
In another case, he said, "we defended a lady down in Arizona who, on Saturday mornings, would go to the grocery stores and get all their unused food. She had one little bookcase she'd set on her driveway for her neighbors" where they could select food items for themselves.<br />
<br />
Some of those people, he said, "didn't have jobs" and had trouble making ends meet, yet "the police came out and tried to stop that. We threatened to sue and the police backed off but, believe it or not, they actually did surveillance on [that woman] for a couple weeks, watching her and filming her, with her little bookcase at the end of the driveway for poor people."<br />
<br />
That's the kind of thing, Whitehead said scornfully, that "we're seeing all over the country."<br />
<br />
(A shorter version of this interview previously <a href="http://exm.nr/18nPqZA" target="_blank">appeared on Examiner.com</a>. Video of John Whitehead's remarks following the interview are available to <a href="http://youtu.be/fPSWVsbumGM">see on YouTube</a>.)<br />
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Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-25619369676113918082014-01-07T21:04:00.000-05:002015-03-21T18:02:54.173-04:00Author Interview: Evan Thomas discusses his Eisenhower biography, 'Ike's Bluff'<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinTvMb_13eosHxaE9FZbtuogxNAfsbAvcFl2cJqU_gAnI2GS5Ql3qTa8X5T2sABhEbp88TLmjZOjFyEh9LCd4-qwmE26j7nZzx4MdOa81kPWoVtDx4Xt-dk4CW61fIBDEMD8a9AKTyL44/s1600/Evan-Thomas_Mar22-2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinTvMb_13eosHxaE9FZbtuogxNAfsbAvcFl2cJqU_gAnI2GS5Ql3qTa8X5T2sABhEbp88TLmjZOjFyEh9LCd4-qwmE26j7nZzx4MdOa81kPWoVtDx4Xt-dk4CW61fIBDEMD8a9AKTyL44/s200/Evan-Thomas_Mar22-2013.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evan Thomas</td></tr>
</tbody></table><a href="http://youtu.be/EXrwbLvuHKk">Speaking at the Virginia Festival of the Book</a> in Charlottesville <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2013/03/2013-virginia-festival-of-book.html">last March 22</a>, veteran journalist Evan Thomas said of President Barack Obama, “he can seem a little cocky, and a little peevish at times, a little put-upon, like he's doing us a favor being president.”<br />
<br />
Thomas was drawing a distinction between Obama and Dwight Eisenhower, the subject of Thomas's most recent book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BR9WRQS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00BR9WRQS&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World</i></a>, which was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316091030/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0316091030&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">released in paperback</a> in September.<br />
<br />
In an interview after his presentation, Thomas -- who also wrote biographies of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743258045/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0743258045&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">John Paul Jones</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743203291/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0743203291&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">Robert F. Kennedy</a> -- explained his remarks to me.<br />
<br />
Obama, he said, is “part of his culture,” because “cockiness and a sort of in-your-face trash talking is really part of our culture, so Obama's not distinctive in that way.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316091030/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0316091030&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0316091030&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0316091030" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />By contrast, he continued, “Eisenhower came from an earlier time and he cared more about modesty and not showing off.” He understood that “people who are arrogant are really pretty insecure” and he was also “incredibly patient.”<br />
<br />
Eisenhower was able to get a lot done, Thomas explained, because he was “able to sublimate and swallow his own ego.”<br />
<br />
That said, Thomas noted, “Eisenhower had a huge ego but he worked harder at concealing it. He said he got ahead by concealing his intelligence and ambition.”<br />
<br />
The two presidents differed in their engagement with the news media, as well.<br />
<br />
“Eisenhower was good at keeping secrets. He liked to take the long view” Thomas said, but added that “he was pretty available to the press. He met the press a lot more than Obama does. He had press conferences every two weeks.”<br />
<br />
Journalists in the 1950s “were pretty cozy with power in those days. They're a little more standoffish today but they also get less access,” he explained.<br />
<br />
Today's “White House is pretty walled-off now,” Thomas said. “It's pretty hard to get access” from members of the Obama administration.<br />
<br />
Thomas also drew a distinction between Eisenhower and another president, Teddy Roosevelt, who is admired by President Obama and also is the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00351DSG4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00351DSG4&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">subject of one of Thomas's books</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00351DSG4/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00351DSG4&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00351DSG4&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00351DSG4" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Roosevelt, he said, “was an amateur who wanted to be a warrior.”<br />
<br />
He quit his job as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to join the Rough Riders. “He had to be shot at. He was very explicit about it. He wasn't pretending otherwise,” said Thomas.<br />
<br />
By contrast, Eisenhower was “a grand strategist” who had “seen the ugliness of war, who'd had to send thousands of men to their deaths and bomb cities and he was just damned if he was going to get the United States into a war.”<br />
<br />
That quality was what sparked Thomas's interest in writing <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BR9WRQS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00BR9WRQS&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Ike's Bluff</i></a> in the first place.<br />
<br />
“I was intrigued about Eisenhower as the great warrior who wanted to stay out of war,” he explained. Eisenhower helped lead the Allies to victory in World War II “and then as president was determined to keep the United States out of war, and that interested me.”<br />
<br />
(Video of Evan Thomas' remarks at the Virginia Festival of the Book is available <a href="http://youtu.be/EXrwbLvuHKk" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2013/03/2013-virginia-festival-of-book.html" target="_blank">here</a>; an audio recording of our interview is <a href="http://bearingdrift.com/2013/03/30/the-score-this-week-howard-dean-screams-into-virginia-ikes-humility-tasty-aliens-and-an-easter-prayer/" target="_blank">available as a podcast</a> through <a href="http://www.bearingdrift.com/" target="_blank">Bearing Drift</a>. An earlier version of this article <a href="http://exm.nr/YNcXZS" target="_blank">appeared on Examiner.com</a>.)<br />
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<blockquote><a target="_blank"href="http://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1422899139880&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=ricksincerene-20&linkId=4KW7EUJCZSROB3ZF">Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=pf4&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></blockquote><br />
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Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-44043742642243435792014-01-02T09:39:00.000-05:002015-03-21T18:03:09.153-04:00Author Interview: Jonathan Rauch on his reissued 'Kindly Inquisitors'<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBH-HSP2lp8XoIL7WoIVI7J6td22ldLwIAvagabsQQHSp2sj-X4UH71VCxD1-mnhDiyLfgrbBFoNqZ4hUxArCvcDSCr8ZZmKKVFgUNzfIXBMJkNCt6y9_SYQrTlFd7DVhxPVvKgCekO0g/s1600/Jonathan-Rauch-Oct16-2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBH-HSP2lp8XoIL7WoIVI7J6td22ldLwIAvagabsQQHSp2sj-X4UH71VCxD1-mnhDiyLfgrbBFoNqZ4hUxArCvcDSCr8ZZmKKVFgUNzfIXBMJkNCt6y9_SYQrTlFd7DVhxPVvKgCekO0g/s200/Jonathan-Rauch-Oct16-2013.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Jonathan Rauch</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Twenty years after it was first published, a new, expanded edition of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226705765/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0226705765&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought</i></a> is now available <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FLO0F78/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FLO0F78&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">as an ebook</a>, with an ink-and-paper edition coming out in March 2014.<br />
<br />
Jonathan Rauch, the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FLO0F78/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FLO0F78&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Kindly Inquisitors</i></a> and other books (including <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812922573/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0812922573&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Demosclerosis</i></a> and his 2013 memoir, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CLJAMII/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00CLJAMII&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Denial: My 25 Years without a Soul</i></a>), spoke to me recently following a panel at the Cato Institute, in which he discussed his book and what has happened with regard to free speech and censorship in the last two decades with Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and Brian Moulton of the Human Rights Campaign.<br />
<br />
After the panel, Rauch explained what inspired him to write the book in the first place.<br />
<br />
When, in the late 1980s, “Salman Rushdie wrote <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812976711/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0812976711&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>The Satanic Verses</i></a> and received a <i>fatwa</i> (essentially a death sentence) from Ayatollah Khomeini,” he said, “I thought that the West did not know how to respond to that. It could defend the laws of free speech but it wasn't defending the ideas of free speech. People were saying things like, 'Well, a death sentence on Rushdie is certainly offensive and wrong but Rushdie himself was offensive to Muslims,' and so forth. And I realized that a lot of people didn't understand why we have this idea of letting people say offensive stuff.”<br />
<br />
One of the concepts Rauch introduces in <i>Kindly Inquisitors</i> is what he calls “liberal science.”<br />
<br />
He explained that “most discussions of free thought and speech start and end with the U.S Constitution” but he tries “to go a little deeper and look at society's method for producing knowledge and adjudicating disputes about fact, which is in some ways the most important thing we do” – for instance, disagreements about whether Christianity or Islam is “the right religion.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FLO0F78/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FLO0F78&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00FLO0F78&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00FLO0F78" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Historically, he said, the method of “settling disputes like that was war.”<br />
<br />
By contrast, “liberal science substitutes an open-ended, rule-based, social process in which everybody throws out ideas all the time and we subject them to criticism. We kill our hypotheses rather than each other. This turns out both to be spectacularly good at mobilizing intellectual talent to find and promote good ideas and spectacularly good at defusing what otherwise would be political, often violent, conflicts.”<br />
<br />
Liberal science, he said, is the term he coined “for the whole intellectual network we have that seeks truth in Western liberal cultures.”<br />
<br />
He compares it to two other major social institutions for “allocating resources and adjudicating social conflicts.”<br />
<br />
In economics, he said, “market systems are in the business of allocating resources and they use open-ended rules of exchange to do that.”<br />
<br />
In politics, he noted, “democracies are in the business of allocating coercive political power and they use the exchange of votes and compromise to do that.”<br />
<br />
Parallel to those two systems, he added, “liberal science is in the business of adjudicating questions about who's right and wrong and they use the exchange of criticism.”<br />
<br />
These three systems, Rauch explained, “all have in common that it shouldn't matter who you are. Anyone can participate, there's no special authority, and no one gets the final say. No one can stand outside the system and say, 'Here's the final result.'”<br />
<br />
The result is “always subject to change. It's a big rolling social consensus.”<br />
<br />
Since <i>Kindly Inquisitors</i> was first published in 1993, there has been a major, positive change in the intellectual environment, Rauch said.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CLJAMII/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00CLJAMII&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00CLJAMII&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00CLJAMII" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />“In the last twenty years there's been a retreat by active ideologues who favored censorship and speech controls,” he said. Those views have “been replaced with a more refined case that focuses more specifically on how minorities can be hurt when hate speech rises to a certain level of prevalence in society. It's called the 'hostile environment doctrine.'”<br />
<br />
In preparing the new edition of his book, Rauch “decided to take a really hard look at that because I think it's right now the biggest and most serious challenge to people like me who advocate very robust freedom of speech.”<br />
<br />
He wanted to find out, “from a minority point of view, which is better: a wide open system where people are free to say hateful things about me and often do, or a more controlled system where you've got some people in charge trying to protect me from that?”<br />
<br />
His conclusion, “based on the history of the last twenty years for gay rights” is that “there's no contest. We're much better off as minorities when our speech and the other side's speech are [both] protected because we win those arguments, and we're worse off when that process is interfered with.”<br />
<br />
The expanded edition of <i>Kindly Inquisitors</i> includes a new foreword by syndicated columnist George F. Will and a new afterword by Jonathan Rauch. It is available now in both Nook and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FLO0F78/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FLO0F78&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">Kindle formats</a> and a print version will be released next year by the University of Chicago Press.<br />
<br />
(An earlier version of this interview <i>appeared on Examiner.com</i>. A complete <a href="http://bearingdrift.com/2013/12/14/bad-santas-bad-deals-and-kindly-inquisitors/" target="_blank">audio recording</a> is available <a href="http://bearingdrift.com/2013/12/14/bad-santas-bad-deals-and-kindly-inquisitors/" target="_blank">as a podcast</a> through <a href="http://www.bearingdrift.com/" target="_blank">Bearing Drift</a>.) <br />
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Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-15771472146496456022013-12-29T20:36:00.000-05:002015-03-21T18:03:23.121-04:00Author Interview: UVA's Paul A. Cantor on zombies and liberty in popular culture<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeI4qo09jsViGxP9LYbzRPcTPgIw6rV-bT40TAbu-knUqtlYkaj8lf4VbJ06EdLOyobffj3r6NVnID-oa2QwRu3BRrFigxwQaiS9xo8FSzfCkmgOJBlFnZ_v64W1KQ-IdIrd10U8gjuIY/s1600/Cantor_Nov14-2013_B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeI4qo09jsViGxP9LYbzRPcTPgIw6rV-bT40TAbu-knUqtlYkaj8lf4VbJ06EdLOyobffj3r6NVnID-oa2QwRu3BRrFigxwQaiS9xo8FSzfCkmgOJBlFnZ_v64W1KQ-IdIrd10U8gjuIY/s200/Cantor_Nov14-2013_B.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Professor Paul A. Cantor</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Speaking at the Mercatus Center on the Arlington campus of George Mason University last November about the topic, “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/458374674280714/?ref_dashboard_filter=calendar&source=1" target="_blank">The Economics of Apocalypse: Flying Saucers, Alien Invasions, and the Walking Dead</a>,” University of Virginia <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/cultural-critic-paul-cantor-assesses-the-politics-of-the-new-tv-season">English professor Paul A. Cantor</a> drew upon his research on popular culture to discuss opposing visions of individualism and collectivism in contemporary catastrophe narratives in film and television.<br />
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Cantor, a Shakespeare scholar, is author of a recent book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081314082X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=081314082X&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty vs. Authority in American Film and TV</a></i>, a follow-up to <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0742507793/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0742507793&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization</a></i>, published in 2001.<br />
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Cantor is also co-editor, with San Diego State University professor Stephen Cox, of the 2010 volume, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933550643/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1933550643&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture</a>.</i> He and Cox (who is also <a href="http://libertyunbound.com/editors" target="_blank">editor of <i>Liberty</i> magazine</a>, now an on-line publication) are perhaps the most prominent libertarian thinkers working in the field of English literature today.<br />
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After his lecture and a discussion moderated by <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/historian-jesse-walker-discusses-birtherism-trutherism-and-aids-conspiracies" target="_blank"><i>Reason</i> magazine's Jesse Walker</a>, Cantor explained to me why he was looking into the presence of zombie themes in pop culture today.<br />
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“These zombie stories are a very interesting way of exploring questions that Americans are interested in,” he said.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081314082X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=081314082X&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=081314082X&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=081314082X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />What he has noticed in zombie stories, he explained, is that “almost the first thing that results from the zombie apocalypse is the collapse of the federal government. These stories explore what life would be like in a world that was more like the American western, more like the frontier, in which people are forced to rely on their own resources.”<br />
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Sometimes, he said, those situations are “frightening but for many of the characters, particularly in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0049P1VHS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0049P1VHS&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">The Walking Dead</a></i>, the experience is empowering. They develop a sense of self-reliance, they face a a challenge, and they meet it.”<br />
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In his book, Cantor traces recurring themes in film and TV since the 1950s, a time when there were just three television channels available to most viewers, compared with the hundreds available through cable and satellite services today.<br />
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The proliferation of channels, he said, “has really opened up the creativity in television.”<br />
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Citing <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007KFZ85K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B007KFZ85K&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">The Simpsons</a></i> and <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CRVL5ZE/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00CRVL5ZE&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">The X-Files</a></i> as pertinent examples, Cantor explained that “a lot of shows almost certainly wouldn't have made it onto television in the era of the three networks. It was the Fox Network, the fourth network, that really opened things up.”<br />
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Despite the increase in the number of networks and shows, he said, “there's a lot of continuity. Again, what I'm seeing in these contemporary zombie narratives is in many ways a reconstitution of what westerns were like in the Fifties. What we certainly have now is greater variety and, frankly, greater quality because people are able to take more creative chances.”<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933550643/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1933550643&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1933550643&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1933550643" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Cantor's new book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081314082X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=081314082X&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture</a></i>, he said, “carries on some of the same issues” addressed in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0742507793/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0742507793&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Gilligan Unbound</i></a>.<br />
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One section of the more recent work “is devoted to globalization,” the primary theme of <i>Gilligan Unbound</i>, which was published the same week as the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.<br />
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“This book has given me a chance to see how things have played out in popular culture” over the past decade, Cantor said.<br />
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Writing the book gave him an opportunity to ask “how shows like <i>Fringe, V, Invasion</i>, [and] <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LROMWU/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004LROMWU&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">Falling Skies</a></i> have reacted to developments since 9/11 and [a] world with a threat of terrorism but also the problems created by the war on terrorism.”<br />
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He was also able to compare and contrast pop culture during the Cold War and during the post-9/11 era.<br />
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“I look at flying saucer movies in the 1950s,” he noted.<br />
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In those days, Cantor said, “the invaders are an image of real foreigners. It's Soviet Communism that's showing up in the flying saucers.”<br />
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By contrast, he pointed out, “when you look at shows like <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002U0KHME/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002U0KHME&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">V</a></i>, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0051GOB2G/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0051GOB2G&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank">The Event</a></i>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FOPPBA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000FOPPBA&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Invasion</i></a>, [and] especially <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B5AAW9I/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00B5AAW9I&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Fringe</i></a>, the people invading us are us. 'We've met the enemy and he is us.' These shows explore a disturbing image of the American government as having moved in totalitarian directions.”<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0742507793/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0742507793&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0742507793&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=ricksincerene-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=ricksincerene-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0742507793" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />With so many choices of movies and TV shows to watch, Cantor sometimes relies on serendipity to find what he's looking for.<br />
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“It's chancy,” he said.<br />
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“Sometimes I just like a show, often because I like the characters or the actors in it. Sometimes I force myself to watch a show because it's obvious it's raising the kind of questions I'm interested in. For example, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009NH6AOQ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B009NH6AOQ&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>The Walking Dead</i></a>, I really just like. It's really well-made, well-done.”<br />
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On the other hand, he watches <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009AMAJBO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B009AMAJBO&linkCode=as2&tag=ricksincerene-20" target="_blank"><i>Revolutio</i>n</a> on NBC “even though I don't think it's such a good show because it fits into my thesis and I've got to consider the evidence” as he continues exploration of libertarian and apocalyptic themes in popular culture.<br />
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(An earlier version of this interview <a href="http://exm.nr/1bEmAnR" target="_blank">appeared on Examiner.com</a>.)<br />
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Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.com0