Clinton Books

Attempting to read the Elder Eddas without some familiarity with Norse mythology can be confusing. I got this book because it is short and inexpensive, thus providing me with the needed background without a large investment in time or money.

The book was written in Danish and translated into English a century ago. Its strong point is the succinct summaries of the Norse myths.

On the other hand, there is at least one curious omission. The book refers to the death of Baldur, but makes no reference to the story of how Baldur died, in a William Tell type archery contest.

Another strange feature is that its summary of Beowulf, which the author considered to be a Norse myth, is incorrect. Contrary to this book's claim, Beowulf did NOT cut off Grendl's arm with a sword. On the contrary, Beowulf said that he would not use a sword because Grendl did not, and pulled Grendl's arm out of its socket.

It turned out that Grendl was enchanted and so impervious to swords.

This book is a rant against what Joe Armey (uncle of House majority leader Dick Armey) views as the creeping influence of the religious right in the American political sphere. Yet it reads more like an attack on the right from an unabashed Clinton supporter. Armey seems to think Clinton can do no wrong. The book is shoddily edited, with many grammatical errors. Nevertheless, Armey does offer quite a few solid points on the idea of what Noam Chomsky calls "rollback" -- the trend towards scaling back social gains made during the last few decades. If you can handle Armey's Clinton-chauvinism, the book is an interesting vision of what the "Republican revolution" means to the general population.

I bought this tape as a way to introduce myself to some other possibly intersting/funny lesbian commedians. Until now I'd only heard Suzzane Westenhoefer's "I ain't Cindy Brady" (Excellent!!) and Ellen D.
The other 3 commedians were alright, but not something I'm going to want to listen to again and again. Some of it was a bit too American specific and so I just didn't get it; some of it was just not that funny. Suzanne Westenhoefer though was excellent. It was worth buying this just for her.

Jean Moulin, celebrated resistance hero, creator of the 'army of the night' a national icon in France and a martyr....yet little is known about him in the English speaking world. A decent work on the man who has assumed the status of secular saint is long overdue. In France this pre-war dilettante with his leftist leanings and a talent for art has come to symbolise the courage of resistance, that enabled the re-establishment of the French Republic in 1944. Facing the German invaders, Moulin as Préfet of the Eure-et-Loir département, stayed at his post, organising what help he could for the poupulation. From his initial somewhat foolhardy dealings with the German occupying powers grew the conviction that something had to be done and Moulin turned his skills of organisation to uniting the disparate elements of resistance. As De Gaulle's representative in France he played a key role in the great drama of 'les années noires' before finally being betrayed at a meeting in a suburb of Lyons in June 1943..captured & tortured by the infamous Klaus Barbie, the story of the circumstances of his capture and subsequent death at the hands of his torturers has all the fantastic elements of the best crime thrillers and probably does much to explain the enduring appeal of his story in France. However while the author rightly takes author Patrick Marnham to task for his recent over wrought & sensationalist account of the enigma that was Jean Moulin, this new work is ultimately far too bland to recommend absolutely..In the early chapters the author concentrates on portraying Moulin in the context of France's republican & administrative tradition, not exactly riveting stuff. Building an army of resisters, living on the run, parachutages, secret rendez-vous at safe houses, all the ingredients of a fantastic thriller are here..Yet..progress was slow & painful & amateurish and the resisters themselves, in many ways careless, & bitterly divided, could have led the clumsiest of detectives to the key suspect..I suppose the authors achievement here is showing how Moulin's capture & death was perhaps a result of this inept bungling and stupidity, resulting in a banal end for a tragic hero..this book ultimately reflects this mundanity.. the best & last chapter of the book looks at Moulin's contested legacy, reviewing the literature & some of the more recent & increasingly bizarre theories of how & why Moulin died and what he represented..
..However the main reason for only three stars here is the incredible price tag on this work...designed perhaps for undergraduate or university libraries, anyone actually having to pay for a decent history of Moulin and France during the years 1940-44 should forgo this work and acquire Julian Jackson's superlative "France 1940-44 - the dark years", which is a book three times the size of this one for a third of the price..!

Muslims and Modernity is a "cultural studies" attempt to introduce issues and debates in Islamic thought. His summaries of Muslim thinkers are usually incisive and demonstrate consider hard work. It sometimes shines, but is over ambitious and reaches too far to be consistently valuable. Like almost all treatments of "modernity" there is an overemphasis on lack of and presumed fear of modernity without assessment of Islam's capabilities and discounting the degree to which backwardness - while not exclusively the fault of colonialism or the west - is political, structural, derived from an economy extracting resources. None of these causes are particularly "Islamic" as most third and fourth world scholars would tell you.

The basic "left-right" scale to categorize positions of Muslim thinkers examines major topics comparatively with some focus not possible by collecting summaries of different thinkers. Only late does the author mention what should have been a cautionary note - that thinkers are not consistently left or right regarding different issues. Many important writers are included although those from Indonesia (of considerable importance) and even Tariq Ramadan are ignored. (Tariq Ramadan is used briefly as a secondary source not subject to the same kind of analysis.) How practices fit in five categories from totally forbidden to absolutely required should have been noted with appropriate emphasis on how by far most matters are in the middle category of not regulated at all by law. The reader would benefit from a clearer idea of how every Muslim thinker refers to the early community, Prophet Muhammad, and the Qur'an - all predating the Shari'a. (Read Tariq Ramadan's new sudy of Prophet Muhammad for this.)

Generally the assessments seem fair and concise although the one person I knew personally (two directed study and reading programs in Graduate School), Ismail al Faruqi, seems somehow harsher than the man I knew.

The historical examples like Algeria, Bangladesh, and Palestine are summarized but in such a way as to provide inadequate basis for evaluation or integration into the studies of the thinkers. The literary examples are interesting but inadvertently exaggerate extremes because they are dramatic with considerable literary license.

There are inevitably possible small errors with so many dates and names; sadly there is one major error that is surprising from an author who seems reasonably knowlegible. He mentions that Zakat is a percentage of "disposable income" when in fact it is much better described as based on about 2.5% of net worth. He does mention jizya paid by dhimmis but neglects to add that these people were excused from any military service as well as payment of zakat. Along these lines one can mention that he uses with little warning or comment two authors infamous as Islam phobic to a point that their scholarship is undermined: Bat Yo'er and Pipes. (A similar study of non Muslim authors would be informative.)

A book of this kind also, perhaps unsurprisingly, lacks the sociological analysis and empathy to put things in useful perspective to make the historical case studies more useful.

Bill Clinton is an extremely intelligent man, with a surfeit of charisma, and remarkable political acumen.

He's also a pathological liar, woman-abuser, and war criminal...a sex-crazed sociopathic thug.

Journalist Christopher Hitchens emphasizes the latter, not-so-flattering characteristics of our 42nd Chief Executive in this brief, angry polemic, which really should not be described as a book. (Hitchens recycles some of his past work on the subject in order to pad things out a bit.)

It is, as one would expect per Hitchens, well-written, funny, profane, incisive, informative, and unsparing. Clinton-lovers won't like having their man lacerated with such thoroughness, and Clinton-haters will have their distaste reinforced. (Apolitical types won't care one way or the other, if they even bother to pick up the book.)

One Incredible Journey is a story of two men seeking to cross Canada by river and portage. The revised and updated edition also describes a man in the midst of a change and effectively rededicating himself to the challenge of the wilderness.

This is a book of multiple essays written by various academics about the Clinton - Lewinsky imbroglio. It has an aura of the absurd for the non-academic... these folks take the discourse over this seemingly nonsensical moment in American history VERY seriously indeed. Linda Tripp, Ken Starr's pornography, the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, the Meaning of Monica are all explored in a pastiche of Freud, Foucault and Derrida. Most of the essays are both humorous and academic, and are therefore easy to digest for beleaguered graduate students and tenured types with tired eyes.

There is much liberal invective underlying most of the analyses, however, and much sadness over the passing of the progressive liberalism of the 1960s. Clinton's (Bill, that is) fundamental conservatism is ignored in place of the social meaning of his sexual behavior and the public's reaction to it. Interestingly, none of the essays analyze the obvious: the sexual entitlement mentality of Southern men or the bizarre reaction of mainstream feminists to the scandal: they vilified the women involved rather than the men, reaffirming their cooption by the "ruling classes" that feminists for years have claimed affected only conservative sociopaths like Phyllis Schlafly. The resolution of the impeachment is only briefly touched on ... sadly... since to me that was the most interesting part of the whole drama.

There is room, now that time has passed and a new era of social conservatism seems to have ushered in, for further analysis of what exactly the sexual discourse was during the Clinton years and the broader meaning of the impeachment. I would encourage this same group to follow up Our Monica Ourselves with another volume, eschewing, perhaps, the invective and embracing a more scholarly distance from the subject matter.

The best ideas are the ones that make you wonder why you didn't write them. It's a typical Sunday, and our narrator's watching the NFL with a cold beer, when he suddenly finds himself in the body of President Bob Clayton, in the White House. What would happen if we got a REAL redneck president? He'd quit straddling the fence and take a stand on something, by gum! To quote my Pappy, "Do something even if it's wrong." Darrell has some pretty strong ideas. You might not agree with them all. For example, I could NEVER cheer for the Cowboys over the Redskins. But Darrell opens the floor to debate and discussion, and livens it with his trademark wit. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

This 1912 juvenile-adventure story bears all the hallmarks of that sort of story from that era. If a three-star rating means that a book is "average," this one is about as average as they come, even given the perhaps-unusual setting of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

It strikes me that anyone who's read "Tom Brown's School-Days" or other examples of the English schoolboy story will recognize all the requisite characters and plot points here. Dick Clinton of Maine comes to the Academy younger and smaller than all his classmates, and is promptly nicknamed "Pewee." Predictable adventures ensue, including hazing by a popular and athletic fellow plebe; a semi-protective friendship with a somewhat mysterious upperclassman; flights over the wall and other violations of regulations; nervous interactions with pretty Annapolis girls in petticoats; and ultimately a cheating scandal that threatens to ruin Pewee in the eyes of his class and have him "bilged" from the Academy. Through it all, Pewee maintains the sort of priggish uprightness and devotion to duty and honor schoolboy heroes of the era were expected to display.

I'd love to know what prompted the author, William O. Stevens, to write this story. A member of the Annapolis English department since 1904, Stevens is described in an article on the Academy's website as one of a group of professors who "introduced the systematic study of literature into the midshipman curriculum." He was also the author or co-author of numerous non-juvenile books, including naval science textbooks and a well-regarded history of the U.S. Navy. I haven't been able to locate any other juvenile fiction he wrote, so perhaps this was just him trying his hand at something new.

Whatever the cause, he produced a book that jumps through all the requisite hoops of pre-war school stories. The Annapolis it portrays is largely unrecognizable today (except, sadly, for the cheating scandal), and I should point out that its depiction of African-Americans and the language used to describe them is distinctly unpleasant. I can't believe it would hold much interest today, except as a curious relic of the era, which was just the spirit in which I read it.