Bennett Books

I absolutely love this book! Mary-Louise is an inspiration and she and her work should receive a lot more coverage. By the time I read this book, I was a "Secondary Virgin" and although I was happy with my decision to wait until marriage it was definitely getting tough at times and in a response to a prayer for help, I found this book. She shows that all of us desire to love and be loved in a pure and true way. It really is encouraging to read of her work with teenagers. She delivers a great message and the kids respond well- the truth is out there and they want it! This should be required reading for everyone once they hit 12 or 13 years of age. I am happy to report that I stuck to my decision to wait until marriage and am now very happily married to a wonderful, kind and incredibly sexy man who loves me for who I am! Shortly after we met and started to get to know one another he asked me why I was still single. I said, "Well, no offfense, but most guys are only after one thing and when they find out they have to marry me to get it, they usually don't stick around." He asked if that meant that I was a virgin. I said, "No, but I'm a secondary virgin and I'm waiting until my wedding night." To my surprise and relief, he said that he was too. We had religious reasons for waiting, in addition to the practical reasons. I encourage everyone, regardless of age or gender to do as we did- it really is a great way to weed out the undesirables. You only need ONE spouse- read this book and sincerely pray for guidance and if it is God's will for you to marry, you will. God Bless and have a great day!- Karen

This is a terrific book! I sat down and read the whole thing cover to cover! Mary-Louise is so inspiring to me as a young adult seeking to live this life of chastity. She helped me to see even more how beautiful it is to wait until marriage.

I LOVE this dessert book! I have made several recipes from it and all of them are wonderful. I always have people asking me for the recipes!

It is amazing that a book this small can contain recipes that are so great. Everything I have made has been simple to prepare but absolutely delicious. Nothing fancy here. Just the things you grew up with, but better!

This is a collection of cartoons from the best of the best of college cartoonists and is wonderfully funny. It proves how much talent has yet to be tapped in the cartoon world. I imagine many of these will be the cartoonists of our years to come!!

These strips are the best of the best. It's good to know there are such creative young people out there, it makes growing older look inviting.

Professor Bennett's book provides a challenging and insightful new approach to understanding American democracy. His clear descriptions and specific examples make the case he presents cogently. A fine new contribution to political theory, well worth reading and talking about.

Robert W. Bennett tackles the question of why the United States stays united in spite of the fact that more than half the citizens don't vote or participate in the political process. He concludes that the efforts of politicians, both incumbents and office seekers, to identify the topics that concern the citizens and then speak to them represents a form of conversation which is engaging and unifying. A subtext of the book is whether the courts function in what Alexander Bickel called a counter majoritarian manner. Bennett claims that legal scholars have uncritically adopted Bickel's conclusion and neglected the fact that the Constitution has counter majoritarian aspects such as the U.S. Senate which doesn't correspond to population, and even the U.S. House of Representatives in which each state - no matter its populations - is guaranteed at least one representative. Of course, the electoral college, which can frustrate the notion of majority rule, has been in the news since 2000. Bennett then points out that house districts are apportioned on the basis of total population, but many people including children, felons or ex convicts, the mentally disabled, etc., aren't allowed to vote. He concludes that courts are no more undemocratic than the other institutions of the political system.
Along the way Bennett makes a number of suggestions to make the American electoral process more majoritarian. One of them is to give parents extra votes so that their children can be represented in elections. He speculates on the impact that extra votes for parents would have on public policy including education.
Bennett's book has an extensive bibliography but the volume is written in language that the lay reader will find accessible.Talking It Through is subtitled Puzzles of American Democracy. After reading the book this reviewer found the puzzles less puzzling and the suggestions increasingly logical even though they appear dramatic at first reading. In fact, this is a book that invites rereading and is likely to be source of many conversations in the year to come.

Book Review


Taming the Electoral College by Robert Bennett



Reviewed by John Poster


Professor Robert Bennett of the Northwestern University Law School is already thinking about the presidential election of 2008. Unlike the rest of us, Bennett tries to anticipate problems and solve them before they become severe. Reacting to the presidential election of 2000, Bennett believes that the Electoral College as presently defined represents a largely hidden danger in the election of 2008 and beyond. For those of us who have forgotten our high school civics lessons, the Constitution of the United States refers to the manner of choosing the president in Article II and Amendment 12.

Article II
Each state shall appoint...a number of electors equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state may be entitled...The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not lie an inhabitant of the same state with themselves...The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the president, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them to be president; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the president. But in choosing the president, the votes shall be taken by states, the representatives from each state having one vote...

Bennett reminds us that in the election of 1800 in which John Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney ran for president and vice president respectively against Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the electors gave Jefferson, the assumed presidential candidate, and Burr, the assumed vice presidential candidate, a majority of the electoral votes, but an equal number of votes. The election was thrown into the House of Representatives with each state having one vote, Jefferson was chosen president and Burr selected as vice president. The nation realized that a further refinement of the electoral system (the word college is not mentioned in the Constitution) was in order.

Amendment 12
The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for president and vice president...they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as president, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as vice president...

Bennett observes that the founding fathers did not foresee the advent of political parties. The two party system made a conclave of wise people in each state choosing the best qualified person not only unnecessary, but Constitutionally risky. Why risky? As Bennett remarks, only about half the states bind the electors to the candidate that they represent. When you vote for president you're really voting for the electors pledged to that candidate. But what is that pledge worth if not enforced by law? The so-called "faithless electors" have frequently voted for someone other than the person with whom they were associated. Bennett cites examples including the instances when electors have abstained. What happens if one or more faithless electors determines the outcome of a close presidential race? There appears to be no constitutional remedy. The election of 2004 wasn't close and one Minnesota elector, perhaps in frustration at the fate of Senator Kerry, cast his presidential vote for Senator John Edwards, the Democratic Party vice presidential candidate. Bennett warns that the same thing could happen in a very close election.

Amendment 12 also specifies that if there is a tie in the Electoral College for vice president then the Senate decides the contest. A tie for vice president seems less important than a tie for president, but again, faithless electors could frustrate the popular will. When a candidate who lost in the popular vote receives a majority of electoral votes the situation is called the "wrong winner." Currently, there are 538 members of the Electoral College so a majority is 271 votes. In analyzing the demographics of achieving 271 votes Bennett notes that the 11 most populous states have the necessary majority.

Bennett is not optimistic about the chances of a Constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College system. In the first place an amendment requires a two-thirds vote in Congress and then ratification by three quarters of the states. Would the smaller states, which have a disproportionate influence since every state has electors equal to its Congressional delegation, be willing to lose influence to the 11 largest states? Then there is the problem of third party candidates.

Suppose there are three candidates for president and vice president and none of them achieve a majority of the popular vote? One may still win a majority of the electoral vote. Bennett cites the case of Ross Perot. In 1992 Perot received almost 20 million votes and no electoral votes. As it happens, another candidate did receive a majority of the popular vote, but had Perot siphoned enough votes away from the major party candidates to deprive each of them of a popular majority, the Electoral College system would have avoided throwing the election into the House of Representatives. On the other hand, in the 1948 presidential election Strom Thurmond received less than 2.3% of the popular vote, but won 46 electoral votes because his strength was concentrated in a few states. Bennett repeats suggestions that in the 1968 election Governor George Wallace may have intended to throw the election into the House of Representatives and use his electoral votes as a bargaining chip to win concessions from the major party candidates. In fact, Richard Nixon won a popular and Electoral College majority.

If abolishing the Electoral College is not a possibility, are there other remedies? This is the strength of Taming the Electoral College. Bennett lists several reforms that states could adopt in time for 2008. Binding electors to their respective candidates is a reasonable requirement that half the states have not adopted. Bennett also suggests that a proportional system of allotting electoral votes might also avoid "wrong winners." Now all the states and the District of Columbia except Maine and Nebraska have winner take all systems for allocating electoral votes. In Maine and Nebraska candidates receive electoral votes in proportion to their popular vote. The proportional system makes the electoral vote totals more closely approximate the popular vote totals. Bennett also comments on possibilities for avoiding run off elections where third party (or fourth or fifth party) candidates deprive any candidate of a majority of votes cast. If rival slates of electors seek legal recognition as the winning electors (as in the election of 1876), Bennett speaks of recourse to other state results as the deciding factor. Bennett concludes that all these changes could be enacted at the state level and, indeed, constitutionally it is probable that only the states have the right to constrain the electors.

In spite of the controversy following the disputed Florida vote in 2000 little scholarly attention has been paid to the Electoral College system. Bennett's book is a welcome clear-headed and sensible analysis of the pitfalls of the electoral system with some safe detours around the worst of the dangers. Bennett's book is obviously timely and deserves attention among the public and state legislators. It is the outstanding volume on the Electoral College and is likely to maintain that status for a considerable time. My recommendation is that you "elect" this book as a must read before 2008.

Professor Bennett's new book challenges the conventional wisdom that reform of the electoral college is nearly impossible because it can be accomplished only through constitutional amendment. He takes his reader on a lucid and fascinating intellectual ride through the history and workings of this important provision. A most worthwhile book for anyone interested in the politics or legal standing of the electoral college.

I had the hardest time putting this book down! I ordered them to read on a trip, and I hatted the fact that I was almost through with them. I wish there were more books like these! The authors did a great job of describing the characters well. The people are easy to relate to. The books do an excellent job of keeping the readers entertained, but also give advice for every day problems. I highly recommend these books! They are great for teens of any age =).

Once I started reading this book, I had a hard time putting it down! This story chronicles a world where it's illegal for Christians to speak up about their faith. It follow's a boy named Patch as he denies what is to be "the norm" and ends up in a mental facility. But something happens--while in the mental facility, he starts to tell others about God. And the remarkable thing is, it sparks interest and questions. Of course, I am not going to chronicle the entire book, but I will tell you that it's something that you won't want to put down once you start reading it! I suggest reading this book and then passing it one to someone who might not be saved. Or even to someone who is---and be thankful that it's not illegal for us to show our faith!

This book has valuable insight for anyone wishing to explore the varieties of intimacy that make up the fabric of human life and how these intimacies can be developed on a personal, intrapersonal and interpersonal level.

With exercises and checklists, this is the type of book that lends itself to careful reading, journaling, reflection, meditation or other insight.

I found the book Time and Intimacy to be a surprising combination of scholarly research, practical relationship advice, and an uncommon sharing of personal insight and disclosure. As a graduate student I found the volume valuable to me as a research text. As human being I found the book life affirming, remarkably encouraging and personally instructive. Thank you Dr. Bennett for your contribution not only to science, but also to the common good.

This is a great book.

While most entertainment these days, including novels pouring out of Manhattan, mainly soften you up, so that you can more easily tolerate being assimilated into what's radically hurtful, unjust, and failing, "Tire Grabbers," while fascinating, delighting, and revealing all sorts of extraordinary insights into society today, strengthens your independence, understanding, cunning, and will.

This is a very serious book, yet very funny. The writer is so skillful that you don't have to have a great vocabulary to follow what you're being told. It's a lot like watching an adventure movie. There are elements of vivid cartoon, too, and also of dead serious realism, told very straight forward--startlingly different from the viewpoint of the evening news.

The main subject of this book--which is full of variety--is the suppression of parts of ourseves, and those parts of ourselves which seem exotic as a result, when they surface, as they do here. It is, especially, about our political situation and our imaginations.

There are things the author says that I wouldn't say. His protagonist is, in many ways, very different from who I am and who I strive to be. All the better: I consider what he's said, and I have new options. I would have expressed things somewhat differently than Bennett has. All the better: the way he expresses things is brilliant, and a different way than I had considered previously. Again, I have new options, new wealth.

Mainly, I recommend this book to you as a delight and a valuable ally in a difficult time. (People in difficult times to come will find it valuable, too.)

Literarily, it stands with the greatest American fiction--for instance, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "Moby Dick," "An American Tragedy," "Catch-22," "Atlas Shrugged," "One Hundred Years of Solitude," and "People I Met Hitchhiking On USA Highways."

An amazing book by one of America's most highly praised and yet largely unknown authors; a high-octane mix of Thomas Pychon, Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, and a little Peter Pan thrown in for good measure.

TIRE GRABBERS gives us the world we live in, translated into a fantasy landscape.

A helpful guide to finding an appropriate response to many of life's trials. Seekers of deeper psychological understanding may want to look elsewhere for answers--this is a practical book not an academic one. But for those of us who simply need some tools to help us keep from over-reacting (bad) or under-reacting (perhaps even worse) this book is a gem.

The Greek philsophers wrote of the joys of living a life that encompassed the golden mean. This book steers the careful reader to the same destination with equally satisfying results.

Dr. Bennett's "the TOOL" is a simple yet comprehensive set of daily exercises that will help clarify and resolve problem areas in your life. It's twelve sections: Relating, Valuing, Communicating, Self-Preservation, Recognition, Analyzing, Goal Oriented, Idealism, Passion, Adapting, Aspiring, and Change provide the outlines of this work. I saw changes after the first day of use. It's easy to follow by your self, yet comprehensive enough to use with a therapist.

Andrea Sarvady is entertaining, practical and insightful! This book would make a wonderful gift for not only tween or teen age girls, but also their parents!

Have you ever found yourself aimlessly wandering the aisles of Blockbuster, struggling to pick out a movie that you and your kids can watch without shooting yourself in the head, or looking for a good chick flick after a bad break up? Then this is the book for you. Its filled with over 100 humorous reviews, with knee slapping comments in each and every one. Each movie guide includes who to watch the movie with ( mom, dad, boyfriend, girlfriends, kids ect...) and when to watch it, based on your mood. With The Ultimate Girls' Movie Survival Guide; What to rent, Who to Watch, How to Deal, Blockbuster has never been easier to conquer.