Musings: Best [rejected] Short Stories on the Continent Review
Editor Crawford Washington asked 17 published authors to offer their best unpublished works. These short-stories had been rejected by Asimov's, Atlantic Monthly, Ellery Queen, Harper's, Kenyan Review, National Lampoon, New Yorker, Playboy, Sewanee Review, and other respected or successful media.
America in Peril Review
"Were mad as heck and were not going to take it anymore!" This is the rallying cry heard all over America! Yes, these are the words of protest voiced by irate Americans as they join or form unorganized militias from Florida to Oregon and California to Maine.Its time to get angry! Its time to get involved in the battle for Americas survival. Yes its timeunless, that is, youd rather live and die as a slave under an iron-fisted New World Order dictatorship! A tyranny policed by the rabidly anti-American UN! The choice is yours!
Don't Shoot the Messenger: How our Growing Hatred of the Media Threatens Free Speech for All of Us Review
The First Amendment and the American news media are under siege. Loathed and distrusted by the public it hungers to serve, the media faces a backlash of unprecedented proportions. With wit and revealing tales from the trenches, Bruce Sanford, one of our leading First Amendment lawyers, shows that our hatred of the media has reached such heights that even judges and juries have turned against news organizations:
* Multimillion-dollar verdicts have been leveled against ABC and other media companies
* The Gannett Company paid Chiquita Brands International more than $10 million to avoid a morass of litigation over a series of articles built on the unauthorized interception of voice mail messages.
* In the Paula Jones case, Judge Susan Webber Wright called the media "disingenuous," "callous" and "driven by profits," slamming the door on access to information about the President of the United States.
In case after case, judges, dismayed by the media's newsgathering practices, are curtailing constitutional protections for the press while the Supreme Court maintains a stony silence.
When the First Amendment erodes in the courtroom, we all need a wake-up call. This lively and richly storied work is the first to help us understand the dangerous consequences of the disintegration of trust between the public and the news media. In a masterful twenty-year retrospective, Sanford sifts through historical evidence and polls to explore the root causes for the mounting hostility toward the media. He explains how our anger with the press has deepened during the 1990s and how we -- as well as the media -- contribute to the problem. Drawing on interviews with more than four hundred people -- from former Vice President Dan Quayle and scandal-scarred Donna Rice to such respected icons as David Broder and Eugene Roberts -- Sanford describes a dangerous dialectic: the media falsely stereotypes public figures, while the public encourages the caricatures. As consumers we drive up the salaries of star journalists, yet we despise their culture of celebrity. We crave media saturation, yet we are so unsatisfied with the result that we are willing to look the other way when the truth is silenced.
Bruce Sanford is no apologist for sloppy reporting or the vanities of the media. Yet there is something more important at stake. We are killing one of our most treasured national resources -- journalists with the courage to take on corruption or abuse of power wherever they flourish.
Wide Hips, Narrow Shoulders: A Bike Touring Adventure Story Review
This is a story about a 45-year-old man who simplifies his life by getting rid of his material possessions and then sets off around America on a bicycle to discover new ideas about his country and himself. The journey takes him through all 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C.
Those Ugly Americans: 20th & 21st Centuries: The Harm They Do to Good Americans and People Worldwide Review
Rodney Stich, a former federal agent, describes some of the conduct by U.S. politicians and the CIA that makes the United States the most hated country in the world, and the source for the escalating terrorism.
Stuff Happens: Or My Life as a Monkey Review
Who is Dobbin Feldman and why is he saying those awful things about me? In this fictional yet semi-autobiographical novella the author tries to explore the existential experience of being born Jewish into a particularly strange set of familial circumstanc
The Life and Times of a Hyphenated American Review
Writing about the past helps to explain why I am discontent and continuously angry. I am reminded that America is a society dominated by religious fundamentalism and racism.
After a time, I rejected the White American world and went to Asia, seeking another basis for my identity. My identity is still in question. I cannot become an Asian and although I was born in this country, I am not accepted as an American citizen. As my birth certificate clearly states – I am not of an accepted racial color.
The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003 Review
The Revelations of George W. Bush Review
The new book, The Revelations of George W. Bush, is a great political satire. If the Bush Administration scares you, or you're just afraid that one day you'll wake up to see martial law, troops in the streets, where everyone is forced to convert to Evangelical Christianity and wear a Biblical Patch, you'll feel there's a certain element of truth to most of this book. The book is full of half-truths and multi-truths, or, as Steven Colbert might say: "truthiness." In fact, one of the reasons this satire works so well is that it keeps you on the edge; part of you thinks "could this actually happen?" Then you realize some of it is happening right now. A must read.
In China's Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship (The Future of American Democracy Series) Review
