DWD's Reviews

Entertaining but fails to live up to the title Published by Metropolitan Books in 2004. Thomas Frank's stated purpose in What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America is to tell how Conservatives won the hearts of the working class, the middle class and the rich all at the same time. His answer is that rich, Republican elites throw up red herring issues (abortion and gay marriage are two that he mentions frequently) that bamboozle the working poor and the middle class into supporting them and their greater cause of Free Market Capitalism and International Free Trade even though Capitalism and treaties such as NAFTA inevitably beat the little guy into a pulp (his thought, not mine). Thomas Frank Yep. That's about it, although Mr. Frank says it much better than I just did. He also never goes into detail about why Capitalism and Free Trade are both evil (he just assumes you agree, I suppose), although he is very critical o

Not what I'd hoped...  Directed by John Woo. Released in 2002. With the title Windtalkers you'd think it would be centered on the Windtalkers, those Navajo codetalkers in the Pacific Theater of World War II. I'd purposely ignored this movie until I had the time to watch it since I was interested in the topic and have a passing interest in the Navajo culture, having visited the Four Corners area several times and having read a bit about them. Anyway, I was hoping for a movie that focused on the Windtalkers themselves - why they fought for a society that had conquered them and now scorned them, what their motivations were, how their culture dealt with the separation from the Navajo lands, the death and destruction of the war (briefly touched on) and so on. That would have been much more interesting and important. Instead, we get a movie that should be called Messed Up In the Head Windtalker Babysitter - a movie about the white guy who minds the Navajo

A disappointment Published by Ballantine Books in 2006. To start, let me establish my bonafides as a fan of Mr. Thom's work. Three of his novels sit on a shelf less than two feet from this computer. I have the featured review on Amazon.com one of his novels ("The Red Heart"). One of his books is on my Favorite Books List on my profile page. I actually designed a long-term project for my world history classes using historical fiction with his books in mind, and I told him so when I met him at a state-wide conference for social studies teachers. So, I approached St. Patrick's Battalion with much hope. Instead of his usual quality, I found this book to be simplistic, with less detail and bent on beating two points home time after time: the Irish were treated brutally and shamefully by the U.S. army during the Mexican War and the Mexican War was an unjust war. James Alexander Thom Thom makes it clear in the opening dedication and acknowledgments th

An interesting premise and lots of fun     Published by Westminster John Knox Press in 2001. Google this book and you will find some criticism based on the fact that  has entirely missed the point of the book. The point of The Gospel According to The Simpsons: The Spiritual Life of the World's Most Animated Family is NOT to tell how the Simpsons preach the Gospel. They don't. The Simpsons However, not only is The Simpsons the best show on television, it is also a remarkably spiritual show. It is the only show in which the main characters go to church on a regular basis. No one thinks it strange that people pray. Prayers are answered. God exists and he acts. From time to time, organized religion is skewered with their wickedly clever satire. Then again, so is everything else, from rock stars to public education to family life to just about everything else. Pinsky's point is that religion is treated remarkably well on the show that has a bad reputatio

A strong addition to the Sunny Randall series Published in 2007 by Putnam Sunny joins with her retired cop father on a serial killer case that went unsolved 20 years before. It seems the killer has come back again after a hiatus and the elder Randall is chosen to head an all-star task force to catch him. Sunny is brought in as his assistant since she's a former cop and her father trusts her instincts. Robert B. Parker  (1932-2010) As the jacket liner tells you, Sunny gets noticed by the serial killer and he starts to send her notes in the mail... Just to be clear, this is not a police procedural. The reader does not have to read through the drudgery of endless questioning of possible witnesses, etc. Sunny still acts as a private detective and the smart comments and witty dialogue prevail throughout. Sunny makes a lot of progress with her psychologist (Susan Silverman) in this book and a great portion of it is about her numerous issues and the progress s

  Up and Down throughout the book Published in 2006 by Hudson Street Press Stine comments on any number of popular culture items, including tobacco, abortion, God in public schools, baseball, Las Vegas, banning guns, bumper stickers and Wal-Mart. Each little rant comes in short chapters averaging around 4 pages each. Now, my review: I wanted to love this book (since I am  the exact target for this book: a Christian, a conservative and I am a proud resident of Indiana - a red state since LBJ in 1964 with the exception of Barack Obama in 2008) but I could barely get myself to like it. Brad Stine First and foremost, I quickly grew tired of the publisher's decision to pull little tidbits out of the text and highlight them with a box right next to the text that contains the exact same sentence? What was the point of that? Secondly, Stine blames everything in the world on liberals (even for bumps in the road). He assumes that liberal automatically means at