Bland Ambition: From Adams to Quayle - the Cranks, Criminals, Tax Cheats and Golfers Who Made it to Vice President by Steve Tally

An irreverent look at the vice presidency

Published in 1992.

In Bland Ambition: From Adams to Quayle - the Cranks, Criminals, Tax Cheats and Golfers Who Made it to Vice President, Steve Tally looks at America's vice presidents and gives us the inside scoop on each of these men's foibles and character flaws. The chapters are short and sweet and hilarious!

Tally introduces us to Vice Presidents who assumed that they were really assistant presidents, vice presidents who never really showed up to work, vice presidents who showed up to work but really shouldn't have bothered and vice presidents who never really grasped the idea that they were supposed to work with their presidents to get things passed through the Congress.

For the research paper writers out there, Tally's work would be inappropriate to use as the main source of your information, but it would make a fantastic book to add that little bit of extra to make your paper more interesting to read!

This was truly an enjoyable read. I borrowed mine from the library but I'm adding it to my wish list because I want to have a copy of my own!

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on May 18, 2005

Glory Lane by Alan Dean Foster

Published in 1987.

Glory Lane is a good old-fashioned sci-fi romp that is just made worse by the inclusion of all three human characters.

This is one of those stories where lovable losers get caught up in something really big and really complicated that they didn't even know existed. Typically, as these types of stories go along, the lovable losers do better, they grow, and they rise to the occasion.

These characters do not grow. They remain petty, impudent little pests and I found myself wondering why the other races tolerated the human species if this was all the better examples that they were going to meet!

Seriously, the actual sci-fi was top-notch. There were a multitude of worlds and species that were well-done. But, it was marred by the inclusion of a punk rocker, a geek and a ditzy blond who continued to bicker, and sometimes actually fistfight with one another, no matter the situation. I wish he'd haven given that aspect of the story a rest.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Glory Lane by Alan Dean Foster.

Reviewed on May 15, 2005.

To America: Personal Reflections of a Historian by Stephen E. Ambrose

Originally published in 2002.

To America: Personal Reflections of a Historian wanders and meanders its way through American history and, while this may bother others, personally, I love it. For me, it was as if I were able to sit and listen in on a conversation with a master story-teller.

Ambrose discusses such things as the hypocrisy of Jefferson ('unalienable rights' for all men - how about your own slaves?) and most of the Founding Fathers - but still he does not just topple them for their hypocrisy - he also points out, with wonder, that they accomplished the near-impossible. He also notes the seeds for social change that they all planted, such as universal education (Jefferson). In fact, he directly confronts the 'but he was a slaveholder' mentality - acknowledge the terrible fault - in fact, insist on acknowledging it. But, judge them by the whole of their work.

Stephen E. Ambrose
(1936-2002)

Ambrose covers such flawed men as Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt in a similar fashion. He also discusses other things that he had a hand in, such as D-Day museum, the Band of Brothers TV shows and the process of writing.

Ambrose also throws in his own personal experiences - both with items of a historical nature (such as his own experiences as a vocal protester of the Vietnam War - some he's proud of and others that he wished he wouldn't have done) and his own experiences with success and tragedy.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: To America: Personal Reflections of a Historian by Stephen E. Ambrose.

Reviewed on May 14, 2005.

Cold Service by Robert B. Parker

Reading a Spenser novel is better than not reading one but..

Published in 2005.

...this one doesn't make me want to run out and get another one, either.

I've read every Spenser novel and just about everything else Parker has produced and Cold Service just felt tired.

This book started out so well - the action was moving, the lines were crisp. I laughed out loud and I couldn't wait to open the book back up.

Then, the psychobabble began. There was way, way, way too much relationship study between Spenser and Susan about Spenser and Hawk. Enough already! We know that they'd do anything for each other - not out of debt but out of male-bonded love! We got that during the last book and the other 15 or so that have had this exact same conversation (except in shorter form!)!!

Too bad, because Parker's last Jesse Stone novel was the best of the series and his Jackie Robinson book Double Play was very, very good. This one was not up to those high standards
 
I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Cold Service by Robert B. Parker.
 
Reviewed May 14, 2005.

Chance by Robert B. Parker

Check out the audiobook - it is worth it

Published by Phoenix Books
Read by Burt Reynolds
Duration: 6 hours, 52 minutes
Unabridged

I avoided this audiobook performance of Chance because its read by Burt Reynolds and I figured that if anybody has a chance to ruin a Spenser novel it would be Burt Reynolds. Not that Burt is a bad actor, but he tends to do what he wants to do rather than what he's told to do.

Boy, was I wrong.

Despite his talent for finding bad movies, Reynolds is, underneath it all, a real actor. He finds the voice for the wise-cracking Spenser and hits it dead on. Spenser's observations and one-liners are read perfectly. Not only that, but he covers the voices of all of the mob leaders and his characterization of Shirley Meeker/Ventura gives the reader a great deal of sympathy for how truly pathetic and harmless she was as she got herself caught up in events beyond her control.

Burt Reynolds

Reynold's portrayal of Hawke was different (more southern, but just as tough) because in my mind I always picture Avery Brooks and his precise delivery of lines. But, once I got used to it, it was very good.


Robert B. Parker
(1932-2010)

Now, on to the book. Typical Spenser - wise-cracks, a little violence and a lot of people irritated about him sticking his nose in their business. In this case, Spenser spends a lot of time in Vegas and he isn't very fond of the strip. Susan isn't prominent in this book, but she does her level best to drag down every scene she's in with her incessant discussions about Spenser's character as a man.

Normally, I would give this audiobook 4 stars, but the reading by Reynolds was strong enough that I had to bump it up to 5 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Chance by Robert B. Parker.

Reviewed on March 23, 2005.

Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots by Ken Ham and A. Charles Ware

Published in 2007.

Ken Ham is a lightning rod of a figure for outspoken atheists, especially for those who use evolutionary biology as the basis for their beliefs about religion. The internet is full of attacks and counterattacks on this topic. Ken Ham gets a lot of attention from people who have really not read his work. Whether you disagree with a person or not, it makes no difference to me, but at least be somewhat familiar with the person's work before you attack it.

Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots, in particular, has attracted some attention, mostly because of its provocative title. So, let me start this review with a general rundown about Ham's theses.

Ken Ham's point in the book is this (made in this quote by a quite famous evolutionary scientist):

"Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory." - Stephen Jay Gould (Ontogeny and Phylogeny - 1977)(p. 15)

That's what Ham is saying.

At no point does he remotely excuse the "Christian" excuses for racism that were common in the 18th and 19th centuries.

At no point does he claim that Darwin invented racism.

Ken Ham

Ham correctly notes that scientists used any number of ways to measure human racial groupings and rank them (head size, brain weight, etc.) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hitler used those biological arguments to justify his genocides against the Jews, gypsies and everyone else he hated.

In my master's in education program that I completed two summers ago I saw similar research done to explain low achievement rates by African-Americans in school. It was not being promoted by the school, but I found it doing research for a paper. Seriously. I think it's junk -  but this garbage is still out there.

Even the co-discoverer of DNA, Dr. James Watson weighs in with a bit of old-fashioned scientific racism: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so." (October 2007) (p. 55) Search it - I typed in his name and got lots of articles about it.

Science-based racism does exist because of this old line: "Figures don't lie but liars figure." Science generates lots of facts and figures and they can be twisted to say just about anything.

Does that mean all scientists are racists? Certainly not! Ham never claims it.

So, why only the three stars?

Ken Ham and his co-author A. Charles Ware wrote the book in turns - each wrote different chapters. I give the part that Ham wrote 4 stars. It was interesting and I found it to be quite well-written - a lively style with numerous quotes.

Dr. A. Charles Ware

The part written by Ware was tedious to me. Ware is the president of Crossroads Bible College in Indianapolis and his focus was on mitigating the effects of racism in society. He wants the church to recognize and acknowledge racist attitudes that were commonly taught from the pulpit in the past and move beyond them with the grace of God in a spirit of forgiveness.

It was an important topic but full of cutesy lines like needing to move beyond " 'race' relations to the unity of grace relations". (p. 136) He also has lots of lists and constructions like D.R.E.A.M.S. to help you remember how to build a multicultural church. I found myself in the odd situation of absolutely of agreeing with an author wholeheartedly but the text was ... rather bland. Great information but delivered in a way that did not work for me. I give Dr. Ware's section 2 stars, which makes an average of 3 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots.

Reviewed June 20, 2009.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival. Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Believe the hype - this is a fantastic book!

Originally published in 2010.

Sometimes books, movies, or restaurants get a lot of hype and buzz but really are not what they are cracked up to be.  Unbroken is everywhere nowadays - bookstores, my local grocery store is selling it. I just saw online that there is a movie deal. 

Is it the real deal?



Laura Hillenbrand

Yes, Unbroken is an amazing biography, and it is most definitely the real deal. I plowed right through 450 pages of text in near-record time, devouring chunks of a story that continued to take new twists and turns and lead me to follow Louis Zamperini from the heights of athletic glory in the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the literal pits of despair in a digging out prison camp latrine with his bare hands in order to earn enough grains of rice to barely fuel his ravaged, starved body.

Louis Zamperini grew up as a juvenile delinquent in Torrance, California - a restless kid who, at the urging of his big brother, finally channeled his impressive running skills into something more acceptable than running away from the law. Louis used those skills to earn a spot on the 1936 U.S. Olympic team. He competed well, but expected to do better at the 1940 and 1944 games, which of course were later cancelled due to World War II.

 

Louis Zamperin looking through a
hole blasted through his B-24
on a mission.

Instead of running in the Olympics, Louis found himself training to be a bombardier on a B-24 and heading off to fight in the Pacific Theater.  On a search and rescue mission in 1943, his plane went down and only Louis and two crewmates survived. After floating at sea for 47 days (and losing a raftmate), Louis and his pilot Russell Phillips were picked up by Japanese soldiers and eventually transferred through a series of POW camps, each new one more horrific than the last until the end of the war, including one horrible guard nicknamed The Bird.


Hillenbrand 's descriptions of the terrible torture of floating at sea, the humiliations he suffered in the POW camps, the incredible kindness showed by a precious few guards are exquisite. Her descriptions of his post-traumatic stress disorder and his difficulties in adjusting to civilian life after the war are painful but it is a joy to see him turn his life around, discard the justifiable and understandable anger and move on to make his life count in the best ways he knows how.

This is a fantastic book. I rate it 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival. Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.

Reviewed February 1, 2011.