Author name: davidswanson

“A Very Long Engagement” by Sebastien Japrisot.

“A Very Long Engagement” by Sebastien Japrisot, translated from French by Linda Coverdale, is a wonderful little book, a best-seller and heart-wrenching tear-jerker in the best sense (and there is a good sense of those terms). A girl’s fiance’ is reported dead in World War One, but she has reason to doubt the report. She tracks down leads for years, with the sort of perseverance only such a motivation brings. In read more

An Expendable Man by Margaret Edds
Feb. 25, 2004

“An Expendable Man” by Margaret Edds does a superb job of telling the story of how an innocent man, Earl Washington, was put on Virginia’s death row and ended up spending 18 years in prison. I know she does a superb job because some years ago, when Washington had still not been pardoned but when things were looking hopeful, I researched this case and wrote a series of articles about it in the Culpeper News, the small-town paper read more

Deliberation Day
March 12, 2004

“Deliberation Day” is the title of a new book by Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin. Ackerman was also the coauthor of The Stakeholder Society – a brilliant book proposing that we provide every young American with $80,000 through a 2 percent tax on wealth above $80,000, in order to give everyone the opportunity to acquire an education or launch a business. In Deliberation Day, Ackerman has produced an even more interesting idea, an even more exciting read more

Moore and More is Needed
June 29, 2004

Also published at http://www.opednews.com and http://www.democraticunderground.com and http://www.michaelmoore.com

Fahrenheit 9-11 reminds me of Howard Dean. Both were wildly promoted by the media in a manner not carefully thought through by media bigwigs, and then both were savaged by the media just before opening day.

The size of the audiences seeing this movie was guaranteed by the media hype, and the notion that the audiences consist mainly of liberal activists read more

Fortress America by William Greider

This book contains useful facts and analysis, but I doubt it’s moved many people to action. (Of course the policies it advocates have not been adopted by the Bush II regime.)

People like me who would like to see our military drastically reduced and who have little faith in the good intentions of anyone involved in it are likely to be turned off by Greider’s more middle of the road views and what appears to be his reluctance to express some of the read more

Framed
“Framed! Labor and the Corporate Media,” by Christopher Martin.

Reviewed by David Swanson

May 27, 2004

I didn’t need to be told that the corporate media do a horrendous job of covering organized labor. What this book tells us that I have not seen analyzed so well elsewhere is what the thought processes look like that lead to this horrendous coverage.

It’s simple enough to observe that the media support capital and work against the concerns of workers. But why are there read more

Freedom Evolves by Daniel C. Dennett

Reviewed June 5, 2004

This book veers off onto a number of topics in addition to free will and determinism, most of which material is well worth reading even if you’ve read Dennett’s other work. The argument with regard to free will is a somewhat original take on compatibilism – which is a longstanding position, all of Dennett’s bluster about his groundbreaking scandalbraving notwithstanding.

Our point of view as living acting human beings read more

“God of the Rodeo,” by Daniel Bergner.

“God of the Rodeo,” by Daniel Bergner, 1998, is a great book, an excellent account of life incarcerating and being incarcerated in Louisiana’s Angola penitentiary, a former slave plantation on which much has changed and much has not. The book is also about the struggle required in order to write such a book, a struggle that has recently been made much harder. Compare the following quotes.

(1)”There are countries in which read more

“HOSTILE CLIMATE: Report on anti-gay activity, 1999 edition,” produced by People For the American Way

“HOSTILE CLIMATE: Report on anti-gay activity, 1999 edition,” produced by People For the American Way (http://www.pfaw.org) is an overwhelming document, a 250-page book briefly chronicling 292 incidents of discrimination against homosexuals in the United States during 1998.
Excluded from this list are hate read more

“180 Ways to Walk the Recognition Talk”

Folks at the University of Virginia have been having some good – if sad – laughs over an almost unbelievably stupid and cruel book that was recently distributed to every department manager there. The state of Virginia is trying out a new pay plan on its underpaid university staff. The basic idea behind the plan seems to be avoiding pay raises. The basic idea behind the book seems to be moronic alternatives to pay intended to pacify read more