This book, the latest of many by one of the bravest and most intellectually acute men in America, recounts the confusing position of those who would suggest that America owes Black's raparations payments for slavery. Horowitz asks a simple question: Who owes the money? He also points out that in terms of a lineal responsibility for slavery, only a tiny percentage of Americans ever owned slaves. Additionally, most Americans living today are descendants of post-Civil War immigrants who have no lineal connection to slavery at all.

When Black defenders of this reparations proposition try to make the case that the economic consequences of slavery and discrimination are the reason for income disparities between the races today, they conveniently leave out the Black success stories that highlight the American dream. The success of Black stars like Oprah Winfrey constantly act as a magnet for people everywhere who see America as a beacon of hope for improving the lives of they and their families.

The success of Black's in America surpasses by orders of magnitude Black successes anywhere else in the world. For reference one should read Keith Richburg's book, "Out of America", about his three years working for the Washington Post on their Nairobi, Kenya desk.

Horowitz posits another legitimate question, "what about the debt Black American's owe to White's"? As Thomas Sowell has pointed out, show me a country where slavery hasn't existed and show me a country where land has never been taken by military conquest? The answer is there aren't any. Whites liberated blacks from slavery, first the English and then the American's. We fought a Civil War over the issue.

Blacks enjoy enormous privileges as Americans, something they would have no hope of were they still in Africa. And, as for the arguments about who built the country, the one difference between America and most of the rest of the world is private property rights and a rule of law to protect them. You can't have civil rights without property rights. Spain sent their grandees to Mexico and the English sent their religious protestors to America. Both countries had access to two oceans, abundant natural resources and cheap labor, but look who prospered? The difference was private property rights, without which America would not be what it is today. Read books by Daniel Boorstin like "the Discoverers" and "the Democratic Experience" and you will learn how America was built.

As Horowitz avers it would be helpful if the Black leadership in America focused on encouraging a hand-up to its less fortunate rather than a hand-out. It's a shame that Horowitz doesn't get more support from the very people he endeavors to help. Read this book. A healthy Democracy only works with an educated citizenry.

In the same vein as Bernard Goldberg with his book "Bias:", Bill McGowan speaks out about the heresy of those who are purveyers of the news as reported by the major networks and the nation's leading newspapers. He cites the by-now familiar tale of political correctness gone awry thru yet another attempt by the politically Left to be fair and balanced. The hitch is that this group's idea of fairness and balance is as exclusionary as any you can name in any historical context you care to conjure up. Bias is bias whether from the Left or the Right, but man's need to feel virtuous coupled with his infinite capacity for self deception leads to a metaphorical snow blindness when it comes to seeing reality thru a clear lens.

McGowan's thesis is that the media, in an attempt to be more inclusive of different opinions in the newsroom, has hired reporters who have become advocates for their particular issues which has resulted in the omission of facts unsupportive of that individuals particular advocacy. This has reduced to a stream of issue advocacy reportage on subjects such as racial relations, gay and lesbian musings, feminist positions, the homeless, global warming, and PETA to name just a few. The result has been a steady stream of slanted world views conflicting with those of mainstream America. According to McGowan this has fueled the rise of talk-radio and the internet as mediums where dissenting listeners and viewers can now go and get there information. One might aver that this syndrome is also responsible for the falling market share of the major networks juxtaposed to the commensurately risng share garnered by the Fox Network.

This trend is merely another example of trends going to extremes before correcting back to more normative levels. In this instance most of those on the Right would suggest that it's about time. As an example, the media became furious with Richard Nixon for labeling Helen Gahagan Douglas a Communist back in 1948 and they never forgave him for it. This would suggest that Left-leaning bias goes back far beyond this recent period that McGowan describes in his book. In any event, the explosion of power of the microchip, and its declining cost has propelled the proliferation of information which has accrued to the betterment of us all notwithstanding our political persuasions. And, this has made a better world than the one where dictators have been able to persevere by preaching the big lie to their followers. Think Taliban.

This is another good book to add to your library of books on man's continuing search for liberty and justice.

Martin seems to be writing a "Roman A Clef" in this short, descriptive take on the mating process. It reminded me of the the book by Dawkins, "the selfish gene" and its chapter "the battle of the sexes". Martin comes across as a bright guy proceeding thru the transitional steps toward becomming a facile and entertaining writer. As he continues this journey, which becomes a head trip in itself, he will expand his understanding of the mating game to an analysis that includes not only descriptive passages of feeling and lust, but to ones that include an understanding of the chemistry that causes attraction between unlikely candidates.

The game of love is confusing, and solutions to heartaches elusive and mysterious. Quantifying "chemistry" is difficult but doable. We'll see if Martin is up to the task.

His line about "pain changing life" is accurate as only emotional trauma seems to change behavior. Man's capacity for self deception can only be dented thru the agonizing self reappraisals brought on by the agony of unrequited love. Some how I believe this book is Steve's catharsis from such a journey

For the longest time conservatives have complained that the major media was biased and now Bernard Goldberg, a 28-year veteran of CBS and 6 time Emmy winner has written the definitive book on this very subject. Goldberg was born in the south Bronx, lived in a tenement, went to public schools, voted for McGovern and other Democratic candidates and certainly never voted for Ronald Reagan. With those credentials it is hard to paint him as a Right-wing zealot who bombs abortion clinics and wants to push welfare recipients such as the children and the elderly away from the bosom of government and into the streets to fend for themselves. But what really differentiates him from the other employees of CBS and the other major networks is his ability to see the truth without having it destroy his own self image.

All of the examples of Left-wing bias that he talks about in this book are a function of groupthink and its mutually reinforcing value system. It's of a piece with the same psychological cluster thinking that led to the parable of "the Emperors New Clothes." Among the many examples of bias that Goldberg cites his posterboy is Dan Rather who, while he has been a trusted news anchor for his viewers for 30 years, seems incapable of distinguishing his own personal bias from the factual reality swirling around him on a daily basis. Bernie feels that Dan regards criticism of his worldview as an assault on all that is reasonable and fair, a hypocritical assault on civilized values, but only as Dan interprets those values. Goldberg points out that Dan, like the rest of the people who frequent his orbit at CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN, has a worldview that is filled with the empty sanctimony of the phrase Social Justice. What about just using the word "Justice"? Like so many others who view our constitution as racist and America's founding based on genocide and cultural destruction, 20th century Liberals like Dan Rather and the leadership at the major networks engage in the fallacy of inductive logic or reasoning from the specific to the general. Hence there are always kernels of truth to their worldview, the set of assumptions through which they view the world. I believe that while it's important to understand why Goldberg is able to view this conundrum clearly while others cannot, it's also important to understand how things got this way. (...)

(...) This is an important book and will hopefully inspire more like it. (...) In the end I predict that Dan will give Bernie a big hug and thank him for his intervention. Ain't that America?

Tammy Bruce is a Classical Liberal, one who extols the true virtues of an American culture that has brought a rising tide of wealth to all of its people. In this new book she speaks out against the heavily laden dogma of the Socialist Left that hides behind the labels of NOW, the NAACP, and multiculturalism, the avatar of academic political correctness. She avers that these groups have sought to hoodwink the public while turning America's universities into a bastion of intellectual thought suppression worthy of East Germany under Soviet occupation.

As a true Liberal she voices her support for individualism versus the Groupthink multiculturalism so popular in Hollywood, the media and academia. Her thoughts emanating from her experiences as catalogued in this book are given additional and sustained gravitas due to her credentials as a pro-choice, lesbian feminist who was president of the National Organization of Women from 1990-1996.

The book is a quick read, but the thoughts she outlines are the result of intense and calculated consideration. She correctly sees through all the popular ruses of the Socialist Left which are right out of the Leninist-Stalinist playbook. She points out how a very small number of people (5 or 6) were able to orchestrate the campaign to remove Dr. Laura Schlessinger from the airwaves. She deplores the smears and lies of Molly Yard, Patricia Ireland and Ellie Smeal of NOW who, along with their minions, practice a form of assault on free speech and free thought while abetted by the same culprits, the major media, academia and Hollywood. She relates how these women have even attempted to silence her.

As a true feminist she comes down hard on Jesse Jackson and Bill Clinton with obvious good reason. She even calls out the Gay establishment for pretending to be one thing but in fact being another. She accuses these representatives of the New Thought Police of abandoning their original mission in favor of a Socialist agenda that is the opposite of the principles upon which America was founded. She's so refreshing that it makes you want to stand up and cheer.

I have seen her on the Fox network and she speaks as clearly and articulately as she writes which makes her an attractive spokesman for freedom lovers everywhere. In this book she attempts to refute the many misrepresentations that America is bombarded with daily by our trusted network news anchors. It's noteworthy that former CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg's new book "Bias", about network Leftism at CBS, is ready to debut. It reflects an expanding market that he and Ms Bruce address and it highlights a backlash from real Liberals across the nation that is in full force. In addition, the events of 9-11 have exacerbated the rancor of the people and it seems that this position is echoed in the continuing success in the ratings of the Fox network.

Read this book and know that there are many on the Left and the Right who despise the Anti-Americanism that Tammy Bruce so effectively exposes. She understands Left-wing McCarthyism when she sees it, and America could use more like her.

Barone writes a good book with a simple thesis: that today's immigrants will assimilate into America as well as immigrants did a century and more ago. He compares and contrasts three pairs; Irish and Blacks - Latinos and Italians - and Jews and Asians. His treatment is a straight forward rendering where he describes the old country from whence they immigrated, the crisis that caused them to uproot and come here, there means of employment once here, their family life, their religious practices, their proclivity toward crime and social disruptiveness, their distinctive traits, their educational aspirations, their impact on sports and entertainment and their political associations. Barone does all this with a facile use of statistics and an economy of verbiage.

Because he's politically from the Right Barone sees the rule of law and private property rights as the magnet attracting those who would better the lives of they and their family. This is due to American exceptionalism and its system for diffusion of power that Balint Vazsonyi describes in his book, "America's 30 Years War: Who's Winning?". It's the chance to build wealth without having the local mafia chief steal it from you. Think Taliban.

These immigrants are often the best that a country has to offer up and the first wave or two are usually the most productive both for themselves and society. Barone's contention is that the differing "habits of mind (worldview)" these people bring with them is usually diffused after two or three generations into American idealism and its capacious opportunities.

Those who view the world through a lens of class struggle and minority grievances will find fault with Barone as he doesn't engage in the typical bleeding heart dogma of Left wing savants. He in fact excoriates those who claim the "Vision of the Anointed", the title of a book by Thomas Sowell depicting the Left in all its fatuousness. Wizened followers of this debate know that the curtain came down on 9-11-01 for the Blame America crowd as it signaled the end of the 1960's New Left, and its poisoness philosophy, as a viable movement.

Barone's book is very informative and a pleasure to read. Don't try to make more of it than what it is which is sufficient in and of itself.

I bought this album specifically to listen to "I'll be." Edwin McCain has a distinctive talent and he can seriously "deliver" a song, but he needs top flight management to push him to the next level. Singers are in the business of selling an emotion which is reflected in the emotional response of their audience. This ability is not a function of having the finest voice as judged by a panel of experts, it lies in a free market response where the audience, in annonimity to the singer, buys his CD's. McCain has this talent. I hope he maximizes his opportunity because his presentation of that song moved me.

Simon does his usual thing in this book as he debunks the bunked-up balderdash of the blinkered. His "Ultimate Resource" book, his book on "the State of Humanity" and his posthumous offering, "It's Getting Better All the Time" with Stephan Moore, all converge with the theme of exposing the political agenda under which the progressive Left operates as they disguise their true motives while waving their banner of concern for the environment. The recent publication by Bjorn Lomborg, "the Skeptical Environmentalist", just adds more fuel to Simon's fire. Lomborg has impeccable Leftist credentials as a former member of Greenpeace who also works as a professor in the political science department of a Danish University. He's just that oddity of oddities, an honest Leftist intellectual.

Lomborg set out to prove Simon wrong, but found him to be...drumroll...., to in fact, be right. Lomborg's shock parallels Ron Radosh's experience in setting out to prove the Rosenbergs innocent, but in fact finding that they were guilty. Both men have received scorn at the hands of the Far Left. They are made to be an un-person in true Stalinist style as they suffer the dispersement of disinformation at the hands of their former comrades. The rabbit is out of the hat, as Simon has always known, it's a political agenda that fuels almost all the environmental scare tactics of the Left and in no way does their agenda resemble a search for the truth.

Simon and Lomborg both used statistics and science, freely available in the public domain, leading Lomborg to question why so many environmental myths are so truculently lodged in the minds of the public? Just as Simon talks about the need for a "Truth Lobby" Lomborg was amazed at the closed minded religiosity of his friends who refused to believe, nor had an interest in discussing, his research findings. It is this compartmentalized-brain-syndrome that has consigned Simon's works to the dustbins of bookstores who continue to extol the virtues of always wrong, but presumably well intentioned, environmentalists such as Paul Erhlich of Stanford.

If we are fortunate enough to have a collective national awakening it will probably be because Simon's work, like Bach's music, will have been discovered at some later date in a more rational time in some collectors trunk in an attic, deep in the heart of the land of the fruits and the nuts.

Written 50 years ago this classic book has been dusted off in the wake of the Taliban's bombing of the Pentagon in Washington DC and the WTC in NYC. The book concerns itself with the active phase of mass movements which are dominated by a true believer, a man of fanatical faith who is ready to sacrifice his life for a holy cause. The 19 suicide bombers who have wreaked so much havoc on America are fanatics of this sort. Eric Hoffer attempts to trace the fanatic's genesis and to outline his nature.

Hoffer doesn't dance around the subject like a behavioral therapist billing by the hour. He assumes, in a very straight forward fashion, that frustration with one's life is a peculiarity of fanatics, and assumes that this mindset is necessary for techniques of conversion to achieve their deepest penetration and most desirable results with regard to the fanatic's twisted adherence to his new faith.

Hoffer allows that to understand the various facets of the fanatical personality requires an understanding of the practices of contemporary mass movements. Written circa 1951, he studied the Nazi's, the Fascist's, and the Communist's because it was here where the successful techniques of conversion had been perfected and applied.

This is a book of ideas and as such it offers up theories. It suggests that through amplifying the negative feelings of its frustrated fanatic's a movement advances its interests by seconding their propensities. Hoffer also posits the thought that all not mass movements are bad, however the central point of the book is to explain the composition of the mindsets of a movement's collective of True Believers.

At 168 pages followed by 9 pages of notes, the book is not difficult nor is it an arduous task to read. In fact it's pithy. It has short punchy sections, 125 of them. The work is to be found in the reader's reflections on Hoffer's assertions. He covers the appeal of mass movements and the desire for change found in potential candidates, the personality traits of potential converts, the unity and self sacrifice of the members that is necessary for the movement to achieve its ends, and the factors which determine the length of its active phase. I would offer here that lengthy reflection is suggested if the reader is to derive the full benefits of Hoffer's insights.

Hoffer's beginning notion is that "people with a sense of fulfillment think the world is good while the frustrated blame the world for their failures. Therefore a mass movement's appeal is not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. He continues by saying that the true believer "cannot be convinced, only converted". This basic tenet of the story is about human nature and its susceptibility to totalitarianism both secular and sectarian. To wit, he writes that "all mass movements strive to impose a fact proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. And, that that faith becomes the things the fanatic declines to see. He avers how startling it is to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible, and that faith manifests itself not in moving mountains, but in not seeing mountains move. He say's that in the context of mass movement's faith should not be judged by its profundity, sublimity, or truth but by how thoroughly it insulates the individual from himself and the world as it is."

If you have any familiarity with the story of Jim Jones and his Jonestown Kool-Aid mass suicide, or of the group suicide of the members of the cult who found new meaning in the passage of the Hale Bop comet, or of the mental make up of those who bought into the seven seals dogma of David Koresh in the fatal Waco fiasco, then you will recognize that of which Hoffer describes. Read this book for further insight into the fanaticism of the holy warriors of the taliban and perhaps it will steel your resolve for the long struggle we are all in for.

I read this book in 1993, right after it first came out. It was the marine commandant's choice for Marines who wished to read in their field of concentration. Joe Galloway, a war correspondent and Col. Hal Moore, the commanding officer in this horrific battle in the Ia Drang valley in Vietnam, co-wrote this superb depiction of one of the first set piece battles of the Vietnamese war. That these men survived this battle at all is mute testimony to their irrepressible fierceness, to their dogged determination, and to the fearless efforts of their air and artillery support. They fought a courageous enemy who was bent on one purpose, the annihilation of their American foe. It's a brilliantly told tale of military heroism and perseverance. The recent death in the WTC bombing of one of the primary participants in the battle, Rick Rescorla, and the articles dedicated to his selfless display of bravery as he made certain that his charges were evacuated from the WTC, caused me to review this book once again.

Most Americans are sadly deficient when it comes to any knowledge of military history and its impact on the course of civilization. It seems too often that we are a nation of full stomachs and empty heads. However, the emotional trauma of the recent Taliban attacks on our soil has shaken us loose from our stupor and an interest in affairs military has been thusly ignited. As one who remembers WWII, and whose family is filled with men who went to every war this country has ever fought, my fervent wish is that our citizens will one day wake up to what actually happened in SE Asia in the mid to latter part of the 20th century. My second wish is that people will grow to understand that terrorists are not patriots, and that they are not leaders of their people. Cromwell, Bolivar, George Washington, all of whom refused the crown, they were leaders of their people. Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, they were and are killers of their people. America fought a cold war, rebuilt Western Europe and Japan, and liberated South Korea from the Communists like the aforementioned. Vietnam was a battle in that Cold War.

The Taliban, who have taken many lives to further a fanatical agenda, are merely the latest iteration of terrorists who seek to do what our constitution was written to prevent. This book is a great story about men who fought and died for principles that too many know too little about to understand. Perhaps now that the country is on high alert we'll gain back some ground form the empty heads that have presided over the media and academia in America. Buy this book and read it, you'll be very glad you did.