The N word
We were reading Tom Sawyer tonight and reached the chapter that introduces Huck Finn and he refers to a black man using the N word. I was so shocked to see it that for a moment I hesitated to read it. I decided that Ora 5 would hear it someday and better that he hear it from me so that I can explain it to him. I read through several lines of dialogue that contained the word several times and then stopped and asked Ora if he knew the word. I was thankful that he did not and I explained what it meant and that we never use that word.It reminded me that I first heard that word and learned what racism was when watching Driving Miss Daisy as a kid and I learned the word suicide from Star Wars (Han Solo: "What good is a reward if you ain't around to use it? Besides, attacking that battle station is not my idea of courage. It's more like, suicide.")
Labels: books
posted on Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tom Sawyer, Satirical, not Obnoxious
I'm not sure why, but Ora 5 wanted to read Tom Sawyer. I wasn't very enthusiastic, but I didn't want to dissuade his interest in a classic. My only knowledge of Tom Sawyer is from movies, so the only impression that I have of him is an obnoxious brat; However, in reading to Ora, I'm discovering an amazingly witty book with plenty of satire. Last night we read of Tom negotiating his way into getting a free bible in Sunday School and the admiration of Becky's father. Today we read about the main service. I thought these paragraphs were telling how good Twain's satire is and how much churches haven't changed:After the hymn had been sung, the Rev. Mr. Sprague turned himself into a bulletin-board, and read off "notices" of meetings and societies and things till it seemed that the list would stretch out to the crack of doom—a queer custom which is still kept up in America, even in cities, away here in this age of abundant newspapers. Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.
And now the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself; for the county; for the State; for the State officers; for the United States; for the churches of the United States; for Congress; for the President; for the officers of the Government; for poor sailors, tossed by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions groaning under the heel of European monarchies and Oriental despotisms; for such as have the light and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes to see nor ears to hear withal; for the heathen in the far islands of the sea; and closed with a supplication that the words he was about to speak might find grace and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile ground, yielding in time a grateful harvest of good. Amen.
posted on Sunday, December 27, 2009
Ora 5's 8th Birthday
Ora's birthday was celebrated this weekend. He got some fun toys. Today gifts from Grandma and Gramdpa Caley arrived: The first 2 Hardy Boy books.Ora's friends got him interested in Hardy Boy books and he has already read the first 2 chapters of the first book.
posted on Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman
rating: 3 of 5 stars
In his last book (The World is Flat), Friedman said that the US needed to be competitive in a "flat" world. In this book, he lays out a plan for leading the world in a green economy. He gives several points as to why we should be in the green economy. If you don't find his global warming argument compelling than you will find a compelling argument that we are funding terrorism with every dollar we spend on gasoline.
He gives a fascinating glimpse of a hopeful energy independent future using examples of ingenuity that are being built and tested right now.
Unfortunately, his last chapter is how none of this can happen without the government passing laws to create this new bright future. Laws that will be impossible to pass.
Labels: books
posted on Monday, June 15, 2009
The Dark Side by Jane Mayerrating: 5 of 5 stars
There are not a lot of books that I read that make me want to take some form of action. Jane Mayer does an excellent job of documenting the legal overstepping done by the Bush administration. She also does an excellent of documenting that although the Bush administration says that "enhanced" interrogation techniques have yielded actionable intelligence, in reality the intelligence that we have used has come from traditional interrogation techniques; torture only results in those being tortured saying anything in order to stop the torture.
But even if torture did provide us with actionable intelligence, does that justify it? America from its inception has denounced torture and led the world in human rights and creating international laws to stop torture. We as a country have lost our moral compass and justified it in the name of keeping ourselves safe. But we aren't safer. We have bad intelligence created by bad interrogations.
Obama's decision to end torture will allow traditional interrogation techniques to deliver better intelligence and make us safer.
I said that this book made me want to take action. I voted for Bush twice and I am a registered Republican. After reading this book, I considered very strongly no longer being a Republican. Ultimately I decided that being outside the party would not cause the party to reform. There are plenty of people outside the party that are saying these things and they are falling on deaf ears. Only Republicans working from inside the party will be able to convince the party to reform.
Labels: books
posted on Thursday, April 09, 2009
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. MannGood read. The author's main premise is that before Europeans arrived there were many more Indians than were previously believed and that rather than living lightly on the land, they were very sophisticated civilizations that transformed their land to their needs.
Although this isn't a popular with some groups who would prefer to see a different view of American Indians, the author does an excellent job of documenting a new view of what America once looked like.
Labels: books
posted on Saturday, February 28, 2009
Jeff Shaara's Civil War Battlefields: Discovering America's Hallowed Ground by Jeff ShaaraMy review
I listened to this audio book and didn't know how worthwhile a book about how to visit a civil war battlefield would be. I was pleasantly surprised.The book is more history book as it covers 10 significant battles, why they were important and then a bit of what to see at each site. The battles are listed in chronological order, so you also are led through the war in a logical progression.
I can imagine borrowing the physical book to plan a future vacation.
View all my reviews.
Labels: books
posted on Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes
rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a well-researched book that gives a very interesting history of the Great Depression. The author makes numerous parallels to the current economic situation. Her main arguments are that (1) many of FDR's cabinent members were heavily influenced by Russian Communism and that (2) it was not FDR's government spending on works projects, new government organizations, etc. that brought us out of the depression, but rather World War 2.
I can't argue with the first point as she has her argument well documented. On the second point however, Robert Reich, an Obama advisor, pointed out, it may not have been government spending on works projects, new government organizations, etc., that brought us out of the depression, but government spending on World War 2 that did.
Labels: books
posted on Thursday, December 11, 2008
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooksrating: 4 of 5 stars
The zombie genre gets a new look with this book. I listened to the abridged audio book (couldn't find unabridged at my library). It's done in an interview style 10 years after the zombie war so it feels like you're listening to a History Channel documentary.
Max Brooks (son of movie comedian Mel Brooks) has done such a wonderful job thinking through all the consequences of a worldwide zombie virus that all the characters and events seem plausible. Through interviews with doctors, intelligence operatives, government leaders, war lords, veterans, mercenaries, neighborhood watch leaders, etc, he creates a war so believable that I had to remind myself: "This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real."
View all my reviews.
Labels: books
posted on Thursday, November 06, 2008
Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision of Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Armyby Les Standiford
rating: 1 of 5 stars
This book sounded promising but was boring until the last few chapters when it gets to the war of 1812 and the renewed interest of the cities architect 70 years after his death.
The author does a nice job at the beginning of tying the idea of the terrorism of 9/11 to the burning of Washington, D.C., and then he ties that back nicely at the end.
The rest of the book is like reading the minutes of Congressional meetings.
View all my reviews.
Labels: books
posted on Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Book: The Great Deluge by Douglas G Brinkley
Interesting look at the different players in the Katrina disaster. Like many cities New Orleans had no realistic disaster plan and had never tested it, so when it came time to handle the disaster there were many missteps. My only complaint is that the author points out many of these missteps as if the leaders should have still been able to handle those situations without a plan. The author is very fair to also point out when people, including "Brownie" did things right.Labels: books
posted on Friday, June 13, 2008
Book: Walk Disney by Neal Gabler
This is a very detailed biography of Walt Disney; the audio version was 33 hours long. The author's emphasis is that Walt wanted control so he could create perfection. When he couldn't have that he tired of it and went on to something else: He began with animated shorts and kept pushing to make them perfect: add sound, add color, make the animations more realistic. He then went on to make movies and left the shorts behind for other people to work on. During World War 2 he couldn't make movies because of the demand for shorts for propoganda and because Bank of America would not let them make expensive features while carrying so much debt with the bank. When he resumed making movies they did not live up to his perfect ideals, so he left them to other people and went on to something else: miniatures, trains and eventually Disneyland. With Disneyland a success he went on to begin work on Disney World. Epcot was intended to be a controlled and perfect city, but Disney died before it could be completed and his brother, Roy, reduced Walt's vision to a permanent international fair.Labels: books
posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008
Book: Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan
This is 2 books in one. The first half is Mr. Greenspan's life as an economist. He uses it partially to tell his autobiography and to tell you how he came to believe the economic theories that he describes in the second half of the book. I learned that the idea of free markets has not been a popular theory in the US and many felt the government must conrol markets in order for them to run efficiently. We even went so far as to implement price locking in the 70s.The second half of the book is dedicated to economic theory, so if you don't like economics, don't read it, but I ate up every word.
Labels: books
posted on Friday, May 30, 2008
Kansas City Literature Festival
We went to the Kansas City Literature Festival today. It was a lot of fun and we came home with free books, free bookmarks, free bags and Enid bought a shirt that says "Don't judge a book by its movie."Wonderscope, the local childrens' museum had a large hands on area. Here Ora is decorating a book:
They're writing on windows. They must be math geniuses:
Kansas City Bus where they had story time with kids' books read by the authors:
Labels: Aspen, books, Ewan, Ora 5
posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008
Book: Bringing Down the House
I liked the book, but it lacks much drama. It's interesting to see what they did and how they did it, but there's more action in the commercial for the movie than in this book.I found one point particularly interesting: They were able to pull off much of what they did because of the racial prejudices of the casinos. Mostly Asian of Latino, everyone overlooked them as possible card counters.
Labels: books
posted on Monday, May 05, 2008
Book: A Crack in the Edge of the World
The beginning of the title sums up the book: Crack. This book is more a geology book than about the destruction of San Francisco. The whole first half of the book deals with the geology of the United States and the recent history of geology as a science.Once the book gets into the destruction, it reads much as you would expect. He follows up the destruction with how it affected Religion, Art and Architecture in San Francisco.
Although the author doesn't make the correlation, I was stuck by the similarities between events in San Francisco and New Orleans after Katrina. In San Francisco, insurers refused to pay claims because claimants did not have earthquake insurance which damaged their homes making them "worthless." Then the great fire started and burned their homes and the insurance companies didn't pay because the earthquake had made their home "worthless" and therefore nothing to insure. It sounded very similar to insurance companies not paying after Katrina because it was the flood that caused the damage to homes, not the hurricane.
Another aspect of similarity was the architecture. A design plan had been created for San Francisco, but so eager were businesses and people to get back to living in San Francisco that they were not willing to wait for a "planned" city to be built. This reminded me of many of the ideas for New Orleans to be rebuilt including many New Urbanist ideas; however, New Orleans seems to be trying to hurriedly get tourists back and restore the city to what it once was, not what it could be.
The last similarity is the authors' discussion of human "hubrus" at building a city over a major fault line much as some have argued that people should not live below or at sea level in hurricane-endangered New Orleans.
Labels: books
posted on Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Book: Next by Michael Crichton
This is Crichton's third book on genetics, Jurassic Park and Lost World being the first 2. While Jurassic Park had a wide appeal to every child who likes dinosaurs, Next will appeal to science or law lovers. This book is a cautionary tale of how fast genetics is moving and what could be possible in a short amount of time. The book highlights that science is moving so fast that law is not able to keep up: A major plot point in the book involves cells taken from a human body have been ruled by the legal courts to be discarded waste material and therefore the property of a university, not the individual. Crichton uses it to highlight that property law seems to govern genetics and not an individual's right. He also highlights the practice of patenting genes. Many genes that exist in your body are patented.As usually the story is enjoyable and fast paced with many divergent story lines coming together to a final conflict; however, many story lines do not have any relationship to the main plot and are simply there to show a consequence of genetic research that Crichton wants to focus on briefly.
Labels: books
posted on Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Book: Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy
What would Jack Ryan be like today if he was only 22? This book aims to answer that by putting most of the character that we know as Jack into his son, Jack, Jr.A decent page turner, but lacks the impact of Clancy's earlier books.
Labels: books
posted on Friday, April 04, 2008
Book: Giving by Bill Clinton
This book is Clinton's call to all to change the world through giving of your time or money. The book reads like a laundry list of organizations and what they do. The last 3rd of the book is devoted to environmental issues and doesn't give a lot of concrete examples of how citizens can be involved or organizations that can help.Clinton ends with a note that millions of people giving small amounts would do more than one or two billionaires giving all their money (I had hoped most of the book would be dedicated to this idea) and a call for all people of religious faiths that their own religions all have a requirement to give.
Labels: books
posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008
Book: Stand Tall by Joan Bauer
This book is a young readers book. I listen to them occasionally because it's nice to listen to a simpler book once and a while and I am always looking for chapter books that I might read to Ora 5.The book deals with a 7th grader nicknamed "Tree" dealing with his parents divorce. His grandfather tells him that you have to take something apart in order to understand how it works. His grandfather "takes apart" the Vietnam War, in which he was a veteran, to understand how it works. Tree "takes apart" his parents divorce to understand how it works.
Labels: books
posted on Monday, January 14, 2008
Book: State of Fear by Michael Crichton
I decided that I would keep a record of books I have read or listened to; not to tout my own reading accomplishments, but because I have trouble remembering how many books I have read or listened to over the last few years. So when I finish a book, I'll post a brief note about it.State of Fear is probably best known as Crichton's treatise against the science of global warming. He includes many citations and even a couple of appendices to support his points.
The climax of the book involves a plot to create a tsunami. The book was released in 2004: Before the Asian tsunami. The timeliness is interesting.
I read once that Jerry Jenkins believes that few people will sit down to read the news or inform themselves about any particular topic, but many will read fiction or watch movies. Therefore, public knowledge and thought will be driven more by what they read and watch for entertainment than by what they see in the news or read in a scientific journal.
This premise is born our in Jenkins own Left Behind series in which he and Tim LeHaye teach eschatology through fiction. They have followed up that work with The Jesus Chronicles: John's Story: The Last Eyewitness which is the story of the apostle John's life told as historical drama.
State of Fear falls into this same category: teaching the author's belief while telling a fictional story and will probably have more impact than 1,000 scientific journal articles to the contrary.
Labels: books
posted on Friday, January 11, 2008
