One Man's Law by John Clarkson

Over-testosteronized and just bad.

Published in 1994 by Berkley

First things first. I am a fan of good action stories. David Morrell - great. Robert Parker - Very good. This book. Ugh.

It's as though John Clarkson sat down after watching an A-Team marathon and decided what he needed in order to write this book was a little more cartoonish violence, a lot more sex, long descriptions of S&M sessions and a James Bond girl.

One Man's Law was too much for me. I can't tell you how many cars exploded from being shot in the gas tanks. The lead female character is aloof and built like a fashion model. Don't worry - Devlin will get in her pants over and over again! The bad guys have hundreds of guns an unlimited supply of money and some are even trained killers. Don't worry - Devlin and his Samoan-stereotype sidekick will just run fast, kick and punch harder and shoot accurately on the run while hundreds of bullets zing harmlessly by (if Devlin does get hit, it will only be a flesh wound and he'll heal quickly thanks to a quick rubdown and some more sex).

The ending wraps itself up too quickly and too neatly - we found out about another conspirator after he's been taken out. The dialogue is stiff. The big final confrontation scene is hoaky. Can I go on? Sure, but I won't.

If you have nothing else to read except for this book, watch TV.

I rate this book 1 star out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: One Man's Law.

Reviewed on June 14, 2008.

Hiroshima: Fifty Years of Debate by Robert Young

Looks at both sides of the Atomic Bombing debate

Published in 1995 by Dillon Press

Hiroshima: Fifty Years of Debate is intended for middle and high school students. It is designed to give them both sides of the debate over whether or not the United States should have dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

It offers a short re-cap over the issues involved, including a short synposis of the war. It includes fairly comprehensive arguments from both sides and shows pictures of the results of the bombings.

I would have only added one thing to the arguments: the United States was unwilling to trust its intelligence estimates of Japan's ability to continue the war since it had bungled on the German front the year before and nearly lost everything in the Battle of the Bulge (there were 75,000 American casualties) - a battle that was considered impossible by Allied intelligence since the German's were supposed to be close to surrender by that point.

I will keep this book in my classroom library and it is recommended for students of World War II. If you are a serious reader of World War II literature, this book will offer nothing new but it is a very strong introduction to the topic. It Includes a glossary, a timeline, plenty of big pictures a lot of informative "sidebars".

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Hiroshima: Fifty Years of Debate

Reviewed on June 14, 2008.

The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Robert H. Frank

Entertaining but of questionable value

Published in 2007 by Basic Books.

I have read Freakonomics and Naked Economics in the past 6 months and thoroughly enjoyed them. I was hoping to get more of the same with The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas. It caught my eye because it is nearly the exact same color as Naked Economics (Hmmm, I wonder if the economic naturalists would care to speculate on products that intentionally look similar to better-known products...) and I was hoping to get some more economic enlightenment.

Sadly, the book reads a lot more like an extended session with Yahoo! Answers than anything else. It's interesting, but there are times when you have to wonder why anyone would be wondering these things and there are times when you have to wonder if he actually ran these answers by anyone else in another department at Cornell to see if the economic answer was right or if another answer was correct.

For example, he talks about Germany having a high unemployment rate as compared to the U.S. He mentions the fact that Germany has better unemployment benefits as the only factor for Germany's higher unemployment rate.

Historically, there are two reasons for the higher unemployment:

#1) Germany is still in the midst of absorbing East Germany which has a higher unemployment rate than the former West Germany.

Worthless Weimar Republic currency
just left on the streets

#2) Macroeconomics teaches that, in the short run, you can avoid a higher rate of inflation by holding back GDP growth in a variety of ways that tend to cause more unemployment (sorry economists of the world, but that's the easiest way I can explain it without causing eyes to glaze over for non-econ-minded folks). Germany is deathly afraid of high rates of inflation since runaway inflation occurred during the Weimar Republic in the Post-World War I Germany and that is seen as having been one of the things that brought Hitler to power.

I'm sure great unemployment benefits help, but that is not the only cause for the problem.

**********

It's a quick read, often light and breezy. But, there are better reads out there that do it better.

To learn more about offbeat topics and how economics applies to them, I suggest Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (Fully Revised and Updated)  by Charles Wheelan.

To learn more about basic economics, I suggest Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 
The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas


Reviewed on June 15, 2008.

What Would the Founders Do?: Our Questions, Their Answers by Richard Brookhiser

A fun read. Not real deep, but fun. Good vacation read for history buffs.

Published in 2006.

Richard Brookhiser got the idea for What Would the Founders Do?: Our Questions, Their Answers from the questions from his audiences when he would give a public lecture on the founders. "Richard, what would the founding fathers have said about...(illegal immigration, marijuana, the war in Iraq, etc.)? So, he collected a number of those questions, did a little research and wrote this fun little book.

Richard Brookhiser is the writer of the best overall biography of George Washington that I have read, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington. This one is not the same quality, although I am giving them both the same score: 4 stars.

Why? A book of this sort is just different creature than a biography. By its very nature it is a series of starts and stops (the question and answer format). This inhibits the flow of the book in many ways, but does make it good for the so-called bathroom reader. Brookhiser's sense of humor shines through, as does his genuine respect and affection for these men (the exceptionally successful ladies man Gouverneur Morris, in particular).

Gouverneur Morris

Just for fun, at the end he makes up several descriptions of the sorts of blogs the founders might have written, including 3 for that unstoppable writer Benjamin Franklin. Washington bows out but promises to read them all in a snail mail letter (if you know about him you are not surprised). My favorites, though, are Sam Adams with his blog "BeerandLiberty.com" (conspiracy theories and drinking tips) and John Adams with "TheLifeCareerOpinionsandWritingsofJohnAdamsExaminedandDefendedwithCommentsonhisContemporaries.com" which features long posts, flame wars in the comments and the warning that John makes frequent appearances as a troll on other blogs. Sounds about right to me.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: What Would the Founders Do?

Reviewed on June 19, 2008.

Just One %$#@ Speed Bump After Another . . .: More Cartoons (Speed Bump series) by Dave Coverly

The next best thing to The Far Side

Published in 2005 by ECW Press.

Speed Bump is the next best thing to The Far Side - it is one of those smart and funny comics that make you think and laugh all at the same time. If you're the kind of person that cuts out comics and sticks them up at the office, this is your type of comic.

Coverly has Just One %$#@ Speed Bump After Another broken up into themes and has a little introduction (one written by Rick Kirkman, the guy who draws "Baby Blues.") These are all clever (especially the one in which he describes a typical cartoonist's day).

Well, you'll have to excuse me now, I'm off to the scanner to make a few copies of some cartoons for the office!

I rate this collection 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Speed Bump by Dave Coverly.

Reviewed on June 20, 2008.

The Massacre at Fall Creek by Jessamyn West

A solid bit of historical fiction

Published in 1975.

For this Hoosier reviewer, The Massacre at Fall Creek is most interesting since the places involved are no more than a 45 minute drive from my house.

Jessamyn West does a great job of getting the "feel" of an 1824 frontier community - how small it was, how truly far away it was from "civilization" and how that isolation created a unique culture.

The storyline is based on a real incident in which several white men from a community to the north of Pendleton, Indiana killed two families of Indians, including their children and stole their furs. Records from those days are "iffy" at best so West has to fill in a lot of blanks as she goes along. In fact, she even uses fake names for the white men involved, although it may be that in the 33 years since her book was written additional research has revealed the names of the men.

Jessamyn West 
(1902-84)

Of course, the Indians were outraged at this treaty violation and the U.S. government decided that there was going to be a real trial and it paid for a team of prosecution and defense lawyers to conduct a real trial. A jail was built (ironically, Pendleton is the site of one of Indiana's prison facilities nowadays as well) and a trial was held for four of the five white men. The fifth white man was never captured by white authorities.

The book focuses on the love life of one of the young ladies of the settlement (her love interests intertwine in all aspects of the case), the trial and the aftermath. At times this book reads more like a romance novel, at other times like a legal thriller but it is a solid, enjoyable read about a sad, tragic moment on the Hoosier frontier.

I rate this novel 4 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: The Massacre at Fall Creek by Jessamyn West. 

Reviewed on June 27, 2008.

The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq by Rory Stewart

An informative book without an ax to grind from someone who was really there (who also knows how to write well!)

Published in 2006.

If the Iraq war interests you in any way, even if you are a partisan of the pro-war or anti-war persuasion, read The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq.

Rory Stewart was a member of the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority.) He functioned as governor of Amara province in Southern Iraq - a semi-swampland where the Tigris and Euphrates come together. His tale is a tale of success, failure, friendship, war, violence, trust and betrayal. In other words, his is a story of real people in a very difficult situation with the compounded challenges of religious, language and cultural barriers.

Here's what you learn from this book:

-Success in Iraq is best measured on a relative scale and will ultimately have to be determined by the Iraqis themselves - on their terms with their leaders.

Rory Stewart

-Iran is definitely active in Iraq, as current news from the Bush administration suggests. If Rory Stewart says Iran was involved in his province's politics, I believe him.

-Lots of money was wasted in Iraq, buts lots of projects were completed.

-The Italian armed forces perform under fire according to their international reputation (not worth much since the fall of Rome in 476 AD), as do the Brits (professional.)

-The CPA did not seem to have a great game plan going in, which is a real disappointment to me since the war was planned well in advance. The CPA upper echelons seemed pretty well removed from the realities of day to day operations, even to the point of denying that Stewart and his officials were being shelled when he called his superiors to ask for help. It reminded me of some of the insanity of some of the early episodes of the TV show M*A*S*H.

-There was no clear command structure between the CPA military and the CPA civilian leadership.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq by Rory Stewart.

Reviewed on February 21, 2007.