No comments about O America: 2.

3 comments about No Ordinary Joe: A Life of Joseph Pulitzer III.

1. No Ordinary Joe: A Life Of Joseph Pulitzer III provides a very fine scholarly biographical survey of the man who created the widely known Pulitzer Prize. Joseph was trained for succession to the Pulitzer media empire and worked hard to maintain his family's paper's liberal philosophy even as competitors began mixing news with entertainment. His many achievements in the newspaper world are detailed alongside interviews with over seventy who knew or worked with him: the result is a study spiced with personal insight and celebrating Pulitzer's impact on the publishing world as a whole.



2. No Ordinary Joe: A Life Of Joseph Pulitzer III provides a very fine scholarly biographical survey of the man who created the widely known Pulitzer Prize. Joseph was trained for succession to the Pulitzer media empire and worked hard to maintain his family's paper's liberal philosophy even as competitors began mixing news with entertainment. His many achievements in the newspaper world are detailed alongside interviews with over seventy who knew or worked with him: the result is a study spiced with personal insight and celebrating Pulitzer's impact on the publishing world as a whole.



3. As you watch the national news it is easy to see how the national organizations have blurred news and entertainment. Any attempt on their part to present all sides of a complex story disappears if they can find a blown up vehicle or an injured person. Politicans have learned that the few second sound byte has to convey the message they want or the message isn't getting on the air at all.
   
   Further, there are only a handfull of newspapers that attempt to provide a full story. During the reign of Joseph Pulitzer III, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was one of that handfull. Politically liberal, the paper prospered during the years that other newspapers were failing, merging or converting to tabloid style.
   
   This biography of Joseph Pulitzer III covers his life, but his life was never far removed from the newspaper. This book presents the story of a man not seen so often. Trained by his father from birth to run the paper he had the problems of employees not liking his style, of friction within the rest of the family, and more. It is a fascinating story, well researched, and well told.

1 comments about Finding the Jewish Shakespeare: The Life and Legacy of Jacob Gordin.

1. Written by actress, writer, and teacher Beth Kaplan, Finding the Jewish Shakespeare: The Life and Legacy of Jacob Gordin is the biography of her great-grandfather, playwright extraordinaire Jacob Gordin. Chapters recount Gordin's emigration from Russia to America, the Golden Age and the colorful characters of Yiddish theater from 1891 to 1910, the birth of Gordin's outstanding masterworks such as "Mirele Efros" and "The Jewish King Lear", and much more. An especial treat for theater history buffs, Finding the Jewish Shakespeare is rich with nuanced detail. A bibliography, index, and partial list of Gordin's plays with original titles round out this enduring tribute to a gifted playwright.

2 comments about The Mark: A War Correspondent's Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia.

1. This is a good account of the closing years of the vietnam war, plus insight in cambodia.
   The author does a good job explaining the dynamics of working as a foreign correspondent in a war zone.
   Its funny, irreverent and personal.
   Some of the macro analysis will have readers cheering or jeering. I found it a bit grating.
   All in all a very solid and fun read.



2. A must read for anyone wanting an honest, documented, and exciting story about what it was like being a war correspondent in Vietnam and Cambodia. What is outstanding about Leslie's writing is that he doesn't give in to the journalism game of giving the editors what they want to hear---He tells it like it is, and has a genius for getting his truth through the red-tape. His courage in going to the Viet-Cong for their view of the real reason of the war is absolutely the best exposure yet written about the United States senseless involvement in trying to be a strong-arm for the Saigon elite. Sincerely, Franklin D. Rast, Author-"Don's Nam," and "Ghosts In The Wire."

2 comments about One Man's America.

1. Yesyesyes. I have lived through post war America and Grunwald has recalled and revisited the troubling events since 1945. If I hadn't lived through it, it would be even more important to have read this book. I have been gripped by it for days and I am richer and wiser for having read it.



2. Insightful, impeccably written autobiography that reveals the man -- the major events, and the people who shaped those events, as chronicled in Time Magazine ... of which Grunwald was editor-in-chief.

No comments about It Wasn't Pretty, Folks, but Didn't We Have Fun?: Esquire in the Sixties.

1 comments about Lincoln Steffens: A Biography.

1. This is a great biography of the muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens who exposed a number of corrupt practices by politicians in many of the large cities in America around the turn of the twentieth-century. Born in San Francisco and educated at the University of California and in Europe, he settled in NYC and began writing for the New York papers. In 1901 he joined McClure's Magazine and with other social critics working there (Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker) began writing about political corruption in St. Louis, Minneapolis, and other large cities. The articles were a tremendous success and were later brought out in book form, entitled THE SHAME OF THE CITIES. Theodore Roosevelt was impressed by the work of these journalists (at first, anyway) and tagged them "muckrakers," a reference to certain characters in PILGIM'S PROGRESS. Steffens, as Kaplan makes clear, was not just an exposer of political evils or a moralist, but raised more questions than he answered and made the public aware, through irony and other literary devices, of the paradoxes between public life and private affairs. His chief question, as Kaplan says, was "What are you going to do about it?"
   
   Later, when exposed to the Russian Revolution in 1917, Steffens became an advocate for communist principles. Losing much of his support in America because of his revolutionary beliefs, he spent much of the 1920s in Europe. In 1931 he published his AUTOBIOGRAPHY, which was a huge success, and he spent the next few years until his death in 1936 lecturing across the country. More than anything else, Steffens wanted people to think seriously about society and politics; he never joined the Communist party: "I am not a Communist," he said once. "I merely think that the next order of society will be socialist and that the Communists will bring it in and lead it." He was wrong about that, and not even Kaplan, writing in 1974, could know just how wrong. He's a beautiful writer, though, and makes his subject interesting and important. It's a delightful biography.

4 comments about Telling.

1. Marion Winik is one of the best authors I personally have ever read. I've read (consumed might be a better word..lol) all of her books now and each one only furthers my belief in her writing. She even took the time to personally answer a letter I had written her, which only made me like her more. She's a great author and I will continue to read her works over and over again..



2. This book could have been written by Irma Bombeck . . . except that Irma Bomback would never have written about having an abortion, shooting heroin, or oral sex in the front seat of a car. Essentially, Winik writes about what happens when the generation who never trusted anyone over thirty now finds itself trapped at forty-something. Her reflections and insights are remarkable for their transparancy. Winik neither takes us on a nostalgic romp through "Gee, wasn't it great back then!", nor does she moralize from hindsight with "Here's what I did; here's what I learned; maybe you can benefit from my experience." Instead she just describes what is: what it's like to be forty-something and come to grips with one's history. I laughed, I cried, and I couldn't put the book down.



3. I picked up "telling" only yesterday from Barnes n nobles bargin stacks. (I was only searching non-fiction in my quest to learn more about the history of why). Even though I am already operating on sleep deprivation from my one year old and working all night and day lifestyle I could not put "telling" down (a RARE RARE, so RARE i can't even remember when I plowed through a book with such joy and amazement). I'm endlessly searching for those voices of comradioure (sp?), and have sifted through zillions of books looking for it, for that voice that speaks as if it were my own. Marion winik is this voice, but she's not, she appears to be 'just like me', but it's really just the seductiveness of her writing style, the ease at which she tells it, the way she's managed to take all of the hopeless fiascos we make of our lives and laugh them into o.k. now-ness. There is tradgedy, which she doesn't hide from, and small bits of philosophizing, but most of all its just a back and forth journey through the times of her life (which is so similar to our lives-from the fat and awkward childhood, to the artsy drug-rebelling adolescent, to the station-wagon driving mom in a condominium with a microwave). The real stuff is here, the events of life, unfolding through the ages, just like us. Even though my father is still alive, I'm not jewish and i've never been to new orleans, I'm still just like Marion Winik.



4. I picked up "telling" only yesterday from Barnes n nobles bargin stacks. (I was only searching non-fiction in my quest to learn more about the history of why). Even though I am already operating on sleep deprivation from my one year old and working all night and day lifestyle I could not put "telling" down (a RARE RARE, so RARE i can't even remember when I plowed through a book with such joy and amazement). I'm endlessly searching for those voices of comradioure (sp?), and have sifted through zillions of books looking for it, for that voice that speaks as if it were my own. Marion winik is this voice, but she's not, she appears to be 'just like me', but it's really just the seductiveness of her writing style, the ease at which she tells it, the way she's managed to take all of the hopeless fiascos we make of our lives and laugh them into o.k. now-ness. There is tradgedy, which she doesn't hide from, and small bits of philosophizing, but most of all its just a back and forth journey through the times of her life (which is so similar to our lives-from the fat and awkward childhood, to the artsy drug-rebelling adolescent, to the station-wagon driving mom in a condominium with a microwave). The real stuff is here, the events of life, unfolding through the ages, just like us. Even though my father is still alive, I'm not jewish and i've never been to new orleans, I'm still just like Marion Winik.

5 comments about My Love Affair With America: The Cautionary Tale of a Cheerful Conservative.

1. Norman Podhoretz, the wise, puckish sage of NAMBLA, has come out with a new collection of homespun wisdom. I don't necessarily agree with his suggestion that America put its defense department "in a blind trust" under the direction of Israel, although it is refreshing to hear a prominent Neo-Con admit his secret intentions. Nor will most readers find the same pleasure in watching animals eat their young that seems to arouse Podhoretz so profoundly. But the wonderful memoir -- "From Brownsville to Brownsville" -- a tale of Podhoretz's long ride, most of it on a pogo stick, from Brooklyn to Texas -- ought to move anybody who has yearned to "make it" himself.



2. I find Podhoretz to be a pitiable unimpressive individual, a bitter pathetic old man. He recently stated on Fresh Air with Terry Gross that he has no friends who disagree with him. He lamented this as if to blame it on others stating that politics are the new religion and this is why the polarization in this country exists as it does. If for no other reason it is for the cavalier disregard he expresses for human life. One cannot find intolerance unless one is himself intolerant. I have many people who call me friend whom I disagree with on political issues.
   
   Podhoretz and those who embrace the sick and twisted vision of "neoconservativism" are themselves more dangerous and fanatical than those they are seeking to defeat. If Podhoretz and his fellow neocons are what America has become than America must surely fail, in Iraq and elsewhere. They have debased and perverted what they claim they are seeking to defend. There is nothing noble in the unenlightened neoconservative vision of American hegemony.
   
   No one in America has learned any lessons from the events of Sept 11, 2001 because no one has as yet examined the genuine cause for the behavior of terrorists. The past half century of American foreign policy has been one of nothing but blatant hypocrisy.
   
   I wouldn't gratify the perpetrator of these insane ramblings by giving him any money for this or anything else he or any of his fellow conspirators have written and neither should anyone else.



3. Podhoretz writes with intimacy and frankness. His experience as the child of Jewish immigrants growing up in Brooklyn and ultimately becoming a conservative is what should be a logical conclusion of so many more lives than New York peer pressure typically allows. A great example of someone with the wisdom to get past the elitist hangups of the NYC intelligentsia who instead followed his heart to the truth. A gentle read, and an overall pleasure!



4. Perhaps the absolutely fundamental neoconservative idea was the need to reassert American
   nationalism or patriotism or "Americanism" or "American exceptionalism": the idea that American
   society, however flawed, is not only essentially good but somehow morally superior to other
   societies.

   [This idea] is especially associated with immigration. The future neoconservatives mostly came
   from relatively recent immigrant stock. It is arguable, though certainly unproven, that such people
   in America feel a stronger need than those of longer American lineage to display their credentials
   as Americans; or rather, that those whose families came over on the Mayflower feel that there is
   nothing incompatible between deep patriotism and a propensity to shout about what needs to be
   changed.
   -The World Turned Right Side Up : A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America
   (1996) (Godfrey Hodgson)

   Boy, Godfrey Hodgson really hits the nail on the head there. Norman Podhoretz's book, My Love
   Affair With America, is basically a protracted attempt to suggest that he loves America more than any
   of his former rivals on the Left, or current rivals on the Right. Podhoretz famously broke ranks with
   the intellectual New York set in the 1970's, having determined that their anti-Americanism, most
   ostentatiously displayed during the Vietnam War, neither jibed with his own life experiences--the
   meteoric rise of a poor Jewish child of immigrants to respected writer status--nor was compatible with
   the need to maintain a militarily strong and assertive America, to stand as a final guarantor of an
   embattled Israel's continued existence. He has an easy time rewinning his old battle with the radical
   counterculture (though he's unable to resist the compulsion to claim credit for having created that
   counterculture in the first place). Their anti-Americanism is a result of their genuine opposition to
   freedom, which is America's organizing principle. They do not wish to perfect America, but to
   destroy it and remake it in an image of their utopian (or dystopian) fantasies. Podhoretz gives them
   yet another well-deserved drubbing.

   But then he takes on the modern Right, and here he founders badly :

   In the mid-1990s there unexpectedly came an outburst of anti-Americanism even among some of
   the very conservatives I thought had been permanently immunized against it...I was already pushing
   seventy, and it made me a little tired to think of going back into combat over a phenomenon that I
   had fondly imagined I would never have to deal with again, and certainly not on the Right

   The anti-Americanism he's talking about is the harsh, but loving, cultural criticism of Bill Bennett and
   Robert Bork, and the tentative suggestions on the Religious Right that the Supreme Court may have so
   far departed from the Constitution in its decisions on social issues, specifically abortion and
   Church/State issues, that it is no longer a legitimate institution. Podhoretz is horrified by these trends
   and seeks to read them out of the Conservative movement, but they were there long before him and
   will remain long after.

   The problem for Podhoretz, and for neoconservatism in general, is the absence of a core political
   philosophy. The Left believes that the central duty of government is to guarantee equality of
   outcomes among the citizenry and that government is capable of solving social problems and
   effectively running the economy. Classic Conservatism is structured around a countervailing belief in
   freedom, which necessitates a very limited government, but strong social institutions, and, though it
   requires equality of opportunity, accepts that the resulting outcomes will be very different.
   Neoconservatism is really only interested in supporting Israel and opposing quotas, it's largely agnostic
   on the other issues and has no firm view of the proper role of government generally. On social issues,
   a natural distrust of Christian conservatism and the fact that neoconservatism arose in the urban milieu,
   combine to create a willingness to countenance big government, and the need for a massive military
   requires big government. On the other hand, if equality is enforced by the state, it will work to the
   detriment of groups, like Jews, who are disproportionately successful, so there's a reluctance to trust
   government too far. This naked self-interest is certainly legitimate, but it's hardly a coherent political
   philosophy.

   That Podhoretz is only marginally conservative becomes clear from the fact that he almost completely
   ignores the question of the size and role of government, from his dismissal of objections to the 1964
   Civil Rights Act, from his failure to discuss, except in passing, the free market economic philosophy
   of folks like Milton Friedman and F. A. Hayek, and from his failure to comprehend why abortion is
   such a salient issue on the Right. Even more revealing is his thinly disguised contempt for the
   conservative intellectuals of the first half of the century, who either go unmentioned (Albert Jay Nock,
   for example) or are dismissed as cranks (like the Agrarians--Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, etc.).
   He seems to think that conservatism was born in the 1950s, only became a significant political
   movement in the post Vietnam era (not coincidentally, just after he joined it) and consists of little
   more than nationalism.

   Were that true, were conservatism nothing more than a blind patriotism, of recent vintage, then he
   would be right to criticize cultural conservatives for questioning the moral climate of the country and
   the direction in which it is heading. But conservatism, even American conservatism, antedates
   America. And conservatism has endured precisely because it offers such a powerful critique of
   America. In Albert Jay Nock's great book, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, he says the following :

   Burke touches [the] matter of patriotism with a searching phrase. 'For us to love our country,' he
   said, 'our country ought to be lovely.' I have sometimes thought that here may be the rock on
   which Western civilization will finally shatter itself. Economism can build a society which is rich,
   prosperous, powerful, even one which has a reasonably wide diffusion of material well-being. It
   can not build one which is lovely, one which has savour and depth, and which exercises the
   irresistible attraction that loveliness wields. Perhaps by the time economism has run its course the
   society it has built may be tired of itself, bored by its own hideousness, and may despairingly
   consent to annihilation, aware that it is too ugly to be let live any longer.

   By economism, Nock means a kind of unfettered materialism or consumerism. These lines, prophetic
   anyway, seem even more prescient in light of the events of September 11th. There is a palpable sense
   in America's continuing discussion of the events that the America that died on September 11th
   deserved to die (though the victims certainly did not), that it was too self-centered, too trivial, too
   degenerate. People have now judged the America of the 1990s, which Podhoretz is here defending
   against conservative critics, and, as W. H. Auden said of an earlier time, they have determined it to be
   "a low dishonest decade."

   In the final pages of the book Podhoretz offers a dayyenu, a list of each of the things that would have
   been sufficient for us to owe America a debt of gratitude. After a brief, and platitudinous, generic list,
   including such things as "domestic tranquillity" (which one is tempted to point out that China too
   enjoys), he gets to his real reasons for feeling patriotic, and they are all about the success he's made of
   himself : "...America...sent me to a great university..."; "...America handed me a magazine of my own
   to run..."; "...America saw to it that I would live in an apartment in Manhattan..."; "...America
   arranged for me to build a country house...". It's utterly vacuous and truly appalling.

   Freedom is vital to everything that America stands for. It makes possible the kind of rags to riches
   story that Podhoretz has lived. But it is not enough. Conservatives demand freedom, but also believe
   that our country "ought to be lovely." This loveliness consists mostly of an adherence to the eternal
   values of the Judeo-Christian tradition, of which, as Nock says, we are unworthy inheritors. And right
   there is another key element, humility. Conservatives realize that our inheritance is too precious to
   experiment with willy-nilly and so seek to conserve as much as can possibly be conserved of that
   tradition. Paraphrasing Nock (one last time, I promise), who borrowed a phrase from Lord Falkland :

   What it is not necessary to




5. Norman Podhoretz' billet-doux to the country who has given him so much is an enthralling read occasionally marred by desultory digressions.

   Like all long lasting marriages, this love affair went through periods of turbulence, but even when he felt instances of temptation, he was true to his citizenship and never gave into infidelity. Such inveterate loyalty did not extend to his politics. Once an avowed liberal, "Commentary's" long time editor maturated into as the subtitle declares "a cheerful conservative." Still, his devotion to his homeland remained steadfast regardless of where he was on the political scale. One of the salient disillusionments he found with liberalism was the ignominious tendency to badmouth America. Acts of such betrayal outraged Mr. Podhoretz and no doubt gave increased impetus to his propitiation toward conservatism.

   This love letter warns of a similar concern more recently seen from the right, but this is one area where the supporting evidence is weak. Except for the discussion of a controversial seminar and a handful of other morsels, this charge remains rather unsubstantiated. Certainly, nothing is given that equates to the sixties radicals offering vainglorious aid and comfort to the Vietcong.

   It should also be noted that Mr. Podheretz wisely does not see justified, severe criticism of the government as a lack of faithfulness to the nation. He was one of the many eclectic movers and shakers (ranging from Clinton/Gore cheerleaders Alan Dershowitz and Lawrence Tribe to conservative icons William Bennett and incoming Secretary of Labor Linda Chavez) who gracefully signed the brilliant syndicated ad urging the supine congress to take some action against Clinton, Reno, and company for the savage incursion and kidnapping perpetrated on the noble Gonzales family that infamous Easter weekend. Despite the natural umbrage he felt by this execrable breach committed by her opprobrious government, his allegiance to his beloved America was not diminished.

   In this zeitgeist where patriotism and fidelity are routinely belittled, this tale of mutual honor and approbation stands as an example to be emulated.

3 comments about Move On.

1. Not as completely entertaining as Ellerbee's prior book "And So it Goes," which focused on her career in broadcast journalism, this follow-up is a collection of unrelated tales from her life - each opening a window onto a different phase of it. I prefered Ellerbee's first (and funnier) book, but two tales from this volume are brilliant enough to give it a ratings bump.

   Ellerbee's story of overcoming alcoholism at the Betty Ford Center is as real and honest as memoirs get. Entering the program with a witty cynicism (masking fragile fear), Ellerbee eventually surrenders to the therapeutic environment and is ultimately softened by it. It's just the kind of story you'd expect from an intelligent satirist who (at first) feels she's above the 12-stepping and soul searching, but finally recognizes it as the only way to heal and become whole.

   My favorite chapter, though, is the smart and funny tale of young Linda's first summer job, "We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You." Linda spends her summer working at a resort owned by a friend of her father. After several weeks of mingling with the other young workers - one of whom is a radical looking to unionize - Linda learns valuable life lessons and eventually "sticks it to the man," her boss. In the end, the tale (and the title) becomes a metaphor for prejudice and stereotyping. This story alone is worth the cost of the book. Buy "Move On," read this chapter, then make photocopies of the chapter for your friends... it's the kind of thing you'll want to share.




2. This is nothing less than a work of genius, a beautiful story which is beautifully told. The thrilling exploits of this legendary giant of journalism are sure to enthrall everyone who reads about them. No other person, living or dead, could possibly have a more interesting story to tell, or be able to tell it in a more interesting way. Ms. Ellerbee is simply amazing, and her great talent continues to manifest itself on her wonderful news program which airs on Nickelodeon once per week, but which should be shown at least twice each day. Forget about Murrow, Cronkite, and all the rest - Ellerbee is the greatest!



3. Linda Ellerbee goes on and shows us more of her life. We learn of her friends, her life, and how these shaped her into the woman we've enjoyed for years on Overnight and telling us the real story where others just tell us what they want us to know.