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November 08
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 I'VE BEEN THINKING about how much things change, and yet how little they really do. In other words, things appear to change because the particulars di...
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October 21
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Kenny
gave  to:
The Reagan I Knew (Hardcover)
by
William F. Buckley Jr.
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my rating:
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read in October, 2009
Kenny said:
"Ronald Wilson Reagan was once described as an "amiable dunce," but those who knew him best, including someone who probably WAS the smartest man in every room he entered, William F. Buckley, thought differently. In fact, WFB esteemed RWR as ...more
Ronald Wilson Reagan was once described as an "amiable dunce," but those who knew him best, including someone who probably WAS the smartest man in every room he entered, William F. Buckley, thought differently. In fact, WFB esteemed RWR as one of the smartest, most gifted leaders America has ever known, a man who always kept his eyes on the prize: the ascendency of America and the defeat of Communism. RR once said, "A leader is someone who takes the people where they know they should go, but are afraid."
Their meeting was fated. The New Conservatism of WFB and "National Review" gave philosphical underpinnings to RR's "Morning in America," but it was RR who deftly handled Gorbachev in Iceland to ensure the demise of the USSR. (He boldly walked out of their summit.) Yet shortly thereafter, he secured a visit from Gorby to the US and made his own appearance in the USSR. And within a year after his presidency, Soviet Communism was indeed on the "ash heap of history," as he had predicted.
WFB's memoir of his and RR's apparently deep but sparse (in terms of regularity) relationship shows the value of humor while facing the onerous burden of literally changing the world. I was a keen observer of the RR spectacle myself at the time (I was in grad school and had plenty of time to read papers, watch news, etc.) and was constantly amazed how he managaged to keep all the balls in the air. From this book one realizes that the Presidency, for RR, was nothing more than a continuation of his entire life: a young, energetic man becomes a lifeguard and continues in that mode for the next 70 years. The only thing that changed was the size of the pool.
While not a great biography of either RR or WFB, still this insight into the friendship of great men is worth reading and leaves the reader a little jealous of their connection. And don't be fooled, great minds do not always think alike: ample time is given in the book to their dispute over giving the Panama Canal to Panama (WFB pro, RR con). The fact that RR could so forcefully and powerfully debate someone as educated and erudite as WFB -- and do it on live television without a prompter -- should be enough to put the "amiable dunce" canard to rest once and for all.
RR's great strength was that he made it look easy, and that requires twice the intelligence to simply make an argument.(less)
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October 10
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Kenny
gave  to:
The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (Hardcover)
by
Amity Shlaes
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my rating:
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read in October, 2009
Kenny said:
"It's amazing the lies we're told in the name of education. Like the myth of JFK, I was fed a fairytale about the Great Depression, FDR, and the nobility of collective action.
All these were lies. America is based upon individual, not coll...more
It's amazing the lies we're told in the name of education. Like the myth of JFK, I was fed a fairytale about the Great Depression, FDR, and the nobility of collective action.
All these were lies. America is based upon individual, not collective, rights. In fact, the Bill of Rights are individual, not collective, rights, and the concomitant obligations are also individual. When the collectivists -- statists, in Mark Levin's words -- get their way, economies stagnate, employment shrinks, and millions suffer economic privation, and all we have to show for it are a few post offices and park trails.
Schlaes' book is indispensable and quite readable, giving inarguable evidence of the Socialist/Communist leanings of many of the prime movers during FDR's three terms. (After all, in the 20s, many of these same people traveled to the USSR to admire the "Socialist experiment" and came home and wrote books and newspaper articles lionizing Joseph Stalin, the world's second greatest butcher after Mao.) But history has revealed the folly of their collectivist notions, even if public education has not.
A couple of pertinent paragraphs from the Afterword:
"Along the way the New Deal created a lot of jobs -- millions. Those jobs did indeed cause significant business activity. Industrial production -- factory activity, basically -- came back to 1929 levels around the time of Roosevelt's reelection in 1936. All of these outcomes are taken as evidence of the success of spending. [Keynsian theory, thoroughly discredited by this book and history, still inexplicably holds sway in the Obama administration. kk:]
"But what really stands out when you step back from the 1930s picture is not how much the New Deal public works achieved. It is how little. Notwithstanding the largest peacetime appropriation in the history of the world [until now, with the Bush/Obama stimulus packages (kk):], the New Deal recovery remained incomplete right through the 1930s. From 1934 on -- the period when the spending ramped up -- monetary troubles remained. But they could not take all the blame for the Depression. The story of the mid-1930s is the story of a heroic economy struggling to recuperate but failing to do so because of perverse federal policy. The worst factor was Roosevelt's war on business. But one can also make the argument that lawmakers' preoccupation with public works got in the way of allowing productive businesses to expand and pull the rest forward.
"What was wrong with those public works jobs? Many created enduring structures . . . [b:]ut the public jobs did their work inefficiently. That was because they were scripted to serve political ends, not economic ones."
"Perverse federal policy." Sound familiar?
Lord help us learn from the past before it is too late.(less)
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September 30
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Kenny
gave  to:
Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and the Government Bailout Will Make Things Worse (Hardcover)
by
Thomas E. Woods Jr.
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my rating:
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read in September, 2009
Kenny said:
"10 MELTDOWN TRUTHS
The statist media charges that the reason for our economic meltdown was because of deregulation, a slap at those nasty Republicans. In truth, it was the wrong kind of regulation and intervention in the economy by various...more
10 MELTDOWN TRUTHS
The statist media charges that the reason for our economic meltdown was because of deregulation, a slap at those nasty Republicans. In truth, it was the wrong kind of regulation and intervention in the economy by various administrations (Democrat and Republican) that was responsible; most notably the Federal Reserve, the central bank in charge of US monetary policy.
"The more I know, the more I don't know," is an aphorism beloved by the truly educated, and apropos here, but there are some things we CAN know, and they are as true as they are obvious, to wit:
1. When interest rates are kept artificially low, speculation, indebtedness, and excessive leverage are encouraged, all of which are culprits in our boom-and-bust economy.
2. When taxpayers are on the hook for financial institutions' bad decisions (the bailout), the financial institutions become more reckless. The solution is to cut the tie: no bailouts.
3. Expanding credit, as a means of lowering interest rates (exemplified by the sub-prime housing market) ALWAYS results in a boom-bust cycle.
4. When the Fed artificially lowers interest rates, this encourages lines of production that are not market-inspired and result in excessive risk that cannot be sustained in the long run.
5. The "boom" portion of the cycle is a result of artificially low interest rates set by the Fed. The "bust" portion comes from government interventionism: nationalism and needless public works.
6. Artificial credit expansion (a misdiredction of production) not only caused the Great Depression, but increased its length and severity.The Great Depression was only "great" in America; elsewhere in the world, governments allowed the market to self-correct and most countries came out of their financial woes within five years. In America, it took WWII to finally eradicate it.
7. If the Fed had not made money so inexpensive (via artificially low interest rates), loans to unworthy borrowers would not have been made. They were made, however, because of Democrats in Congress, eager to reinforce their constituencies (the poor and people of color), saw to it that financial institutions were required (by law or extortion by organizations like ACORN) to make loans to people whom experience had shown had a high likelihood of nonpayment. And thus it began.
8. Presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, have stated that a part of the "American dream" is home ownership and have crafted the Tax Code to that effect (c.f. the home mortgage deduction). That is fine, but the market used to decide who actually GOT a home and that was usually people who could scrape up the 20% down payment. Why 20%? Because experience (actual banking experience, not legislative wishful thinking) had shown that someone who was able to save 20% toward a down payment for a home would likely continue to pay on that home when times got tough. Plus, their down payment gave them instant equity and also a reason to stay put and work through hard times instead of simply jumping ship when times got bad.
9. A class war may have begun: due to government policies, if you bought more house than you could afford, if you took out home equity loans to purchase consumer goods, and if you're missing your payments, you get special consideration. But if you behaved responsibly and bought a smaller house than you could afford, and didn't treat your house as a giant ATM, you get no special consideration. In fact, you indirectly subsidize the foolish and improvident. Which are you?
10. The solution is this: let the market decide the value of homes. This will make housing more affordable and will make it possible for people to purchase homes without getting themselves so deep in debt. However, this option is never even considered. Therefore, we are in for more resource misallocation and a more intense bust in the future.
Hold onto your hats and buy gold.(less)
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August 16
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Kenny
gave to:
We the Living: 60th Anniversary Edition (Paperback)
by
Ayn Rand
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my rating:
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read in August, 2009
Kenny said:
"Ayn Rand's first major work of fiction, written when she was just 25, while she was still too young and inexperienced in language to be a great writer, but too experienced in life to not have something great to say. If the book seems a little derivia...more
Ayn Rand's first major work of fiction, written when she was just 25, while she was still too young and inexperienced in language to be a great writer, but too experienced in life to not have something great to say. If the book seems a little deriviative, one should remember that the now well-known and almost cliched story of Soviet-era repression was first told in this book, and later told in better style by Pasternak and others. But Rand's signature elements are present even at this early age: the beginnings of her individualist philosophy, the love triangle between a strong woman and two lesser men, the florid chapter-beginning sensory descriptions, and the somewhat wooden, speechifying dialogue. And this is not a criticism; I found "We the Living," as all Rand's work, to be both less than a novel and more: less because of her lack of talent as a novelist in terms of plot, pacing, and dialogue. More because of the intellectual ideas and ideals to which she subscribes; the standards by which her characters' lives and choices are judged. Not bad work by a young, inexperienced writer in her second language, and strong, foundational support for her later works, "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," both highly recommended.(less)
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August 09
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Kenny
gave to:
Anthem (Paperback)
by
Ayn Rand
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my rating:
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recommended for: serious thinkers
read in July, 2009
Kenny said:
"Imagine learning a second language and deciding to become a published writer in that language just a few years later. Next, imagine having a complex philosophy to expound in that second language, a philosophy that shakes the very foundation of the re...more
Imagine learning a second language and deciding to become a published writer in that language just a few years later. Next, imagine having a complex philosophy to expound in that second language, a philosophy that shakes the very foundation of the reader's conceptions about society and the self. Finally, imagine telling a story where no one therein used the word "I" or referred to themselves -- the individual they were -- in any way whatsoever.
And now imagine how everyone tears this amazing feat to shreds because they don't understand that the story, slight as it is, is merely a vehicle for the philosophy of Objectivism, then only vaguely understood by Ayn Rand herself.
Now, read it again and gasp at wonder at the brilliance of this writer, her youth when she tackled such an amazing feat, akin to a teenager sailing around the world solo. See if you could do it or if you'd even get out of port.
Most of all, imagine you'll ever forget "Anthem" after reading it. You won't, and isn't that the greatest achievement a storyteller can hope to accomplish?(less)
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Kenny
gave to:
The Fountainhead (Mass Market Paperback)
by
Ayn Rand
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my rating:
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recommended for: serious thinkers
read in July, 2009
Kenny said:
"First, a little Ayn Rand primer: if you're interested in this author and her radical Objectivist philosophy, or if you're just uncomfortable with the direction in which our country is going, read her work in this order:
1) "Anthem"...more
First, a little Ayn Rand primer: if you're interested in this author and her radical Objectivist philosophy, or if you're just uncomfortable with the direction in which our country is going, read her work in this order:
1) "Anthem": A short parable about a dystopian future, where the word "I" has been expunged from the human lexicon, with dire results: a collective with no heart, no soul, and no future. Simple, accessible, rather stilted (Rand was clearly unsure about her abilities with English at this time), but thought-provoking.
2) "We the Living": Rand's most personal work. A self-referential story of a young woman coming of age in the Soviet Union. At the time of its release (the mid-1930s), it was decried as unrealistic and harsh; now we understand that, if anything, the privations and suffering of the Russian people under the boot of totalitarianism was understated. Not for the faint of heart, but a deep revelation about what made Ayn Rand such a powerful spokesman for capitalism, which she and hers had been denied in Russia.
3) "The Fountainhead": Objectivism begins to come into focus. Rand calls her protagonist Howard Roark a "creator" and those who sponge off his creativity "second-handers." A small cast, with a love triangle typical of Rand's work, and a powerful female protagonist, as always.
4) "Atlas Shrugged": Rand's philosophy fully blown (and restated endlessly), featuring a dozen main characters, a 1200-page story, many fascinating set-pieces, and the memorable 60-page radio address by John Galt, Objectivism's protagonist, whom Rand calls a "producer." Those who wish to benefit from a producer's efforts are called "looters" (those who take by force), and "moochers" (those who take by appeals to guilt or charity).
* * *
So much has been written about "The Fountainhead" that my review will merely focus on a few passages of Howard Roark's courtroom defense. He's being accused of dynamiting "Courtland," a visionary housing development he designed, and which he destroyed after the architect for whom he designed it (Peter Keating, a classic moocher) failed to keep his promise to build the development exactly as Roark designed it:
"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness off the earth.
"Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.
"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced.
"No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered [even though:] that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self; that entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.
"The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power -- that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself. And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement. The mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought.
"The creator can survive in only one of two ways -- by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary. The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of men.
"The basic need of the second-hander [parasite:] is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism [which is:] a doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above himself. No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind's moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.
"The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption.
"Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution -- or there is nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement."
* * *
Or, nowadays, we revile and tax and hate the act of achievement and call the creator thereof greedy and selfish. We hear a never-ending diatribe against those who have created and an equally deep flood of compassion for those who have not created, but merely "need." The government's first and foremost goal has shifted from supporting (or merely leaving alone) creators, to eradicating all need, which is, of course, a laughable proposition. Need will always expand as our living standard improves. Who needed a financial incentive fifty years ago to buy a new car? If you had the money, you purchased it. But now, in our enlightened times, the government has decided that everyone "needs" $4500 to purchase a new car, encouraging wasteful destruction of cars which get only 18 mpg. And the loss of $1 billion in just three weeks; $1 billion that was not created by a creator through effort, but conjured up on a federal printing press. That is not "growing" the economy, by any standard.
What's next? I need a new refrigerator! I need a new sweater! New Nikes! You name it: the need will never stop, and eventually, those who provide for our "needs" will be taxed to the max and will do what John Galt did in "Atlas Shrugged": they will go on strike.
At which point, REAL needs will kick in. Hope your food storage is up to date.(less)
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July 26
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Kenny
gave to:
Atlas Shrugged (Paperback)
by
Ayn Rand
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my rating:
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read in July, 2009
Kenny said:
"ATLAS SHRUGGED IS NOT SO MUCH A NOVEL as it is a dramatized philosophical treatise, and its redundancy and length is no mistake: Rand is attempting to instill a respect for laissez faire capitalism, no easy task in these days of hate-the-rich anti-co...more
ATLAS SHRUGGED IS NOT SO MUCH A NOVEL as it is a dramatized philosophical treatise, and its redundancy and length is no mistake: Rand is attempting to instill a respect for laissez faire capitalism, no easy task in these days of hate-the-rich anti-corporatism.
Published over fifty years ago, Rand's book was at first received cooly by critics and public alike. Her editor, humorist Bennet Cerf, asked her to trim the 1200 page leviathan. Rand replied, "Would you edit the Bible?"
Arrogant? Perhaps, but arrogance is often just poorly-received competence, and Atlas Shrugged is a perfect example thereof. No, people do not speak like this; Rand's characters do not so much dialogue as speechify. Indeed, John Galt's sixty page radio address near the end of the book may be the longest speech ever written or given, but it wields great power and unimpeachable authority. It is a must read, even if you cannot slog through the entire book.
Atlas Shrugged is an important book and feels especially apropos in the current political climate, where statists wearing liberal sheep's clothing are attempting to fundamentally change the American (and thus, the world) economy. Obama is often compared to FDR, both for his rhetoric and agenda. It can be safely said that the uber-nanny state Obama is attempting to impose upon us got its start as Social Security back in the 1930s, a program originally intended to help the widows and fatherless, but which has expanded (as all federal programs do) into a nationwide retirement program. And it has become the single most expensive item in the budget and is poised to bankrupt the economy, just as cradle-to-grave socialism is threatening western Europe, which is currently turning away from its destructive tenets.
Obama's healthcare "reform" has now morphed into another 1984-style double speak term: "healthcare insurance reform," and will grant the federal government unprecedented control over one third of the U.S. economy. It will be run like all government agencies, with massive bureaucracies, powerful and intractable federal employee unions, unimaginable waste, and a cut-throat competitive edge that will destroy private competition. Who competes with Medicare? No one. Who offers flood insurance in Louisiana apres Katrina? Only FEMA.
Despite its challenging length, Atlas Shrugged is a simple story. Rand's "Objectivist" philosophy divides people into three classes:
Producers: those farsighted individuals who see a need, create a product, sell it on the open market, and reap a reward;
Looters: those who choose not to create, but who seek to take the rewards of creation from the producers, by force, if necessary; and
Moochers: those who use guilt and need as levers to pry profit from producers instead of producing anything themselves.
In Rand's alternate America (this is actually a science fiction novel, due to the presence of futuristic metal alloys and unprecedented energy-producing machines), producers -- tired of the ingratitude of a public that reaps the rewards of the producer's industry and effort -- decide to go on strike. (Indeed, The Strike was the working title of the book.) When the world's economy predictably comes to a grinding halt, it is left to the producers to remake the world in their image: where a man can, through his effort alone, envision, create, and profit from his labors without anyone making demands upon him.
What enrages critics of the book is that it so convincingly rails against what has become a fundamental tenet of modern capitalism: the "duty" of producers to "give back." Bill Gates has used the term; every industrial magnate has. They "give back" because they have been "lucky" and therefore the unspoken implication is that their wealth or prosperity or even their positive self-esteem is unearned. They must "disgorge their profits" for the "benefit of all." Come on, you know you've said this yourself as you write the check to the United Way.
Rand does not condemn charity; she condemns the charitable obligation imposed on producers by looters and moochers. Only producers produce; looters and moochers do not employ producers -- they rob them. The government, whose only Constitutional imperative is to protect us from foreign intervention and maintain a civil society at home, has, in Rand's philosophy, no right whatsoever to steal from producers and give to those who cannot or will not produce. Producers, by the very nature of their life's work, do an immense amount of good for the world: they invent new things, employ people to manufacture them, pay dividends to investors, provide consumers with time-saving and life-improving products, and raise the standard of living of the entire world. Society should be grateful for these people instead of condemning them or taking from them at the point of a gun (the tax code).
What do looters and moochers produce? Nothing, save bureaucracies dedicated to taking from producers and distributing to non-producers.
Rand said it well in the book in a conversation between an industrialist (Hank Reardon) and a high-seas pirate (Ragnar Danneskjold):
"I'm after a man whom I want to destroy," [said Danneskjold:]. "He died many centuries ago, but until the last of him is wiped out of men's minds, we will not have a decent world to live in."
"What man?"
"Robin Hood."
Reardon looked at him blankly, not understanding.
"He was a man who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Well, I'm the man who robs the poor and gives to the rich -- or, to be exact, the man who robs the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich."
"What in blazes do you mean?"
"If you remember the stories you've read about me in the newspaper, before they stopped printing them, you know that I have never robbed a private ship and have never taken any private property. Nor have I ever robbed a military vessel -- because the purpose of a military fleet is to protect from violence the citizens who paid for it, which is the proper function of a government. But I have seized every loot-carrier that came within range of my guns, every government relief ship, subsidy ship, loan ship, gift ship, every vessel with a cargo of goods taken by force from some men for the unpaid, unearned benefit of others. I seized the boats that sailed under the flag of the idea which I am fighting: the idea that need is a sacred idol requiring human sacrifices -- that all of us must live with our work, our hopes, our plans, our efforts at the mercy of the moment when that knife will descend upon us -- and that the extent of our ability is the extent of our danger, so that success will bring our heads down on the block, while failure will give us the right to pull the cord. This is the horror which Robin Hood immortalized as an ideal of righteousness. It is said that he fought against the looting rulers and returned the loot to those who had been robbed, but that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived. He is remembered, not as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don't have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, has demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures -- the double parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich -- whom men have come to regard as a moral ideal. And this has brought us to a world where the more a man produces, the closer he comes to the loss of all his rights, until, if his ability is great enough, he becomes a rightless creature delivered as prey to any claimant -- while in order to be placed above rights, above principles, above morality, placed where anything is permitted to him, even plunder and murder, all a man has to do is to be in need. Do you wonder why the world is collapsing around us? That is what I am fighting, Mr. Reardon. Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive."
Incendiary? Yes. Incorrect? No.
Now, lest I be misunderstood as just another greedy rich guy, I will say that I make an average living. I still get out of bed every day and I struggle to pay my bills. But unlike many, I do not blame others for my lack of wealth. I revel in their prosperity and work hard for my own. I do not begrudge the rich their riches. They employ me; no beggar ever gave me a job. And when I engage in charity, it is not only because I see a need, but because I wish to give. I receive a benefit in the transaction, a feeling of goodness, of rightness. The other's need is secondary. But above all, I give because I choose to, not because I am forced to.
Ayn Rand was prescient. One of Obama's campaign promises was to disallow the charitable tax deduction. This in itself is in line with Objectivist philosophy: the government should not reward (or punish) people for charitable giving. Giving should be its own reward. But the consequence of denial of this tax deduction will be that people will give less and the government, seeing increasing need everywhere, will do what it has always done: it will impose upon us a "charitable tax" in order to satisfy the perceived need. So charitable giving will no longer be voluntary but a requirement. After all, we're all in this together, aren't we? Mark my words.
I close with John Galt's famous words:
"I swear -- by my life and my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
If you are shocked by this statement and believe it is heartless and cruel and selfish, then you have not yet read Atlas Shrugged. You should, before it is banned by the State.
Who is John Galt? I am.
(less)
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July 08
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Kenny
gave to:
The Shining (paperback)
by
Stephen King
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my rating:
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read in June, 2009
Kenny said:
"One of the few books I've read more than twice, simply because it is so flat-out great: the plot, dialogue, writing technique, and characterization are all first-rate. I use this book as the best example of why books are almost ALWAYS better than the...more
One of the few books I've read more than twice, simply because it is so flat-out great: the plot, dialogue, writing technique, and characterization are all first-rate. I use this book as the best example of why books are almost ALWAYS better than the movies made from them. Kubrick's film is excellent in many ways (particularly visually), but the pathos and tragedy of a man's slow but inexorable descent into madness is completely lost in Jack Nicholson's demented portrayal. You genuinely feel bad for the literary Jack Torrance, a terribly flawed but well-meaning man who is at the end of his rope. Caretaking the Overlook Hotel in Colorado over the winter is his last chance and he knows it. Desperately, he makes the best of humiliating circumstances, but his psyche cannot withstand the onslaught of the creaking skeletons in the Overland's many closets. The characters are well-drawn and we see King -- still a relative novice as a writer -- inventing some fascinating methodology to reveal inner, fleeting thoughts: ( ! DICK OH DICK PLEASE COME PLEASE COME NOW !). The ending is a page-turner where "that which was forgotten" provides us with the thrill we have been expecting, as well as a much-desired denouement, which we sorely need. Four stars.(less)
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June 23
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Kenny
gave to:
Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto (Hardcover)
by
Mark R. Levin
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my rating:
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read in June, 2009
Kenny said:
"As a lawyer myself, I always appreciate a well-reasoned defense and Levin does not disappoint. In highly restrained manner, devoid of ascerbic hyperbole, he nevertheless makes his points powerfully and passionately. The upshot is that he so clearly d...more
As a lawyer myself, I always appreciate a well-reasoned defense and Levin does not disappoint. In highly restrained manner, devoid of ascerbic hyperbole, he nevertheless makes his points powerfully and passionately. The upshot is that he so clearly delineates the differences between the Statist and the Conservative that I cannot imagine anyone who isn't a Statist not changing their party affiliation to Republican. But more than defining the differences, he prescribes the solution in his final, brilliant chapter entitled "A Conservative Manifesto," which is filled with common-sense and constructive methods which will go a long way toward defeating the Statist agenda. The only way you can oppose Levin's argument is to disavow the notion of original intent when it comes to the Constitution, as many admittedly do. But I do not; I respect a document that has served this nation well for over 200 years. There is nothing like America elsewhere on earth, there never has been in the past, and, should we ignore Levin's wise advice, there will never be one in the future. Ignore this book at your peril.(less)
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LAST WEEKEND I VOLUNTEERED at the Park City Jazz Festival in Deer Valley, Utah. It has become a tradition with me: excellent music, the joy of helping out, the beautiful mountain scenery, not to mention the respite from the August heat of the Salt Lake valley.
I'VE BEEN THINKING about how much things change, and yet how little they really do. In other words, things appear to change because the particulars di...
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