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 I cannot live without books. -Thomas Jefferson |  Reading Lists |
 There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong. -H.L. Mencken |  Quotes |
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Politics-Government
So slender a thread
Book Briefly Noted, Title The Constitution Of The United States Of America, Author United States, Rating 4.0,
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The Constitution Of The United States Of America United States Briefly Noted |
In one good hour the U.S. Constitution can be read from front to back. It is written in relatively clear language and still has the capacity to surprise.
Book Book Review, Title The Global Public Square, Author Os Guinness, Rating 2.5,
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The Global Public Square Os Guinness Book Review |
Halting steps to soul freedom
Os Guiness' The Global Public Square oscillates between a Utopian call for a universal human rights and a sectarian application of those rights, as if the author was of two minds, wrestling with the views of Roger Williams and James Dobson.
Attrib: Dennis Crowley, CC-BY-2.0.
False confession? How is that possible?
In various studies of U.S. legal cases involving confessions, more than one quarter of the confessions are found to be false, and nearly all of those resulted in conviction. These same studies show high rates of suspects who waive their Miranda rights. Why would someone admit to something they didn't do, particularly if they would go to jail or be executed as a result? Why did they not avail themselves of the Miranda rights to refuse interrogation?Â
Book Book Review, Title How Now Shall We Live?, Author Charles Colson, Rating 2.0,
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How Now Shall We Live? Charles Colson Book Review |
The ghost of Schaeffer past
By the time Charles Colson got out of prison in the mid-70's, having been convicted for acts of political skullduggery during the Watergate scandal, he had converted to Evangelical Christianity. How Now Shall We Live was his best-seller, an homage to Francis Schaeffer's view of Western history. Schaeffer was a presuppositional millennialist who in the 1970's left the quiet life of a Christian intellectual to help lead the evangelicals to the heights of political activism we see today in the U.S.
Book Book Review, Title The New Jim Crow, Author Michelle Alexander, Rating 5.0,
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The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander Book Review |
The War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration
Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is an important and tightly argued treatise on the mass incarceration of black and brown people in the United States since the acceleration of the War on Drugs in the mid-1980's. Most of the incarcerations have been for low level possession, and have disproportionately affected minorities: According to federal figures, blacks and whites use drugs at a roughly equal rate in percentage terms, yet black men 12 times likelier to be jailed for drugs than white ones.
Knives? Guns? Or Disarm?
"The rationale of the National Rifle Association (NRA) is to never bring a knife to a gunfight. The preeminent concern of those most affected by violence is to insure that there is no gunfight in the first place."
- Jelani Cobb, regarding Perceived Threats, a discussion about the contrasting views of the NRA and the black community.
Book Book Review, Title Born Again, Author Charles Colson, Rating 2.5,
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Born Again Charles Colson Book Review |
Hearts and minds
During his years as a Republican political operative, Charles Colson prominently displayed an old Marine Corp saying in his home: 'When you’ve got ’em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.' Colson described those years and the hard crash that followed in his book Born Again as a mid-life autobiography precipitated by a mid-life crisis. After his role as a self-described 'hatchet man' for Nixon White House was slowly exposed during the Watergate scandal, he converted to Evangelical Christianity, and after being convicted of obstruction of justice, he spent some time in prison.