Read column at Daily Herald website It should always be affirmed at the outset that for most elections, most candidates behave with dignity and a sense of responsibility. But at the same time, many don’t. So as the campaign leading to the March 15 primary ﴾and Feb. 29 early voting﴿ gets under way in earnest, Read More …
Category: Blog
These are random thoughts about topics that interest me — including books, rock and roll, philosophy, culture and daily life. I update it whenever the mood strikes me, shooting for at least once a week but often more frequently than that. I welcome your comments on anything I may discuss here and, when appropriate, will reply as promptly as possible.
Book Review: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
How do you make two self-effacing, quiet Ohioans who do almost nothing in the prime of life but work on a wild dream interesting? Give them over to David McCullough and let him tell their story, that’s how. As with everything else of his that I’ve read, McCullough manages through the simple description of events Read More …
Book Review: Two years, eight months, and twenty-eight nights
I have to say, I found myself chortling a bit to myself as I began reading this book. “Hoo, boy,” I thought, “Here we go again with the Birdman nonsense.” By that, I refer to my disdain for a movie that I considered pretentious and undisciplined in its imagination and disguising its author’s lack of a Read More …
Book Review: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
I love Vonnegut’s style and his endearing cynical humanism, though I have to say that I do not see the human race as base and pointless as he does. But I also have to confess that, while I’ve read almost all his books and can cite certain images and scenes from most of them, if Read More …
Book review: Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran
I picked this book up at the library because I was in the mood for an adventure story, and I liked the idea of something from a very different cultural perspective than what I’m used to. The latter was certainly the case – as the story centers on the queen of an Indian kingdom and Read More …
Book review: The March by E.L. Doctorow
I’m not sure what stirred me to choose this as my introduction to Doctorow, but it was an excellent decision. It probably had something to do with my interest in the Civil War, and in that context, this was a very satisfying look at the effect of the war on individual lives in its Read More …
Book review: Wilson
For many years, without knowing much beyond the basics about Wilson, I greatly admired him for his idealism and his commitment, ill-fated as it was, to the League of Nations concept. Then, I ran across some references to his attitudes toward race, and I seriously questioned the depth of my understanding of who he was Read More …
Book review: The Bully Pulpit
I love how Doris Kearns Goodwin develops evocative themes from history. Team of Rivals is so much more than a biography of Abraham Lincoln or yet another examination of the Civil War years. In the same manner, The Bully Pulpit is no mere biography, but a thought-provoking study of a dominant theme of an era – the evolution Read More …
Book review: If I Should Die Before I Wake: One Marine’s Experiences on Iwo Jima
It’s really not fair to give this book a star rating, because John B. Lyttle’s 85-page memoir is clearly not intended as a deep personal narrative but a short informal memory of one man’s experience in a major world event. It’s not meant for an audience interested in historical detail so much as for family, friends Read More …
Springsteen’s Challenging Christianity
I was listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hopes and Dreams” yesterday while raking leaves, and I realized that it may be my favorite of his many, many great songs. Structurally, I’ve considered “Jungleland” my hands-down favorite ever since that first delicious solitary night in a Fulton farmhouse when, discovering Springsteen for the first time, Read More …