5 comments about The Other Path: The Economic Answer to Terrorism.

1. In many ways, I am disappointed that I read this book after reading de Soto's other book, "The Mystery Of Capital". Both this and his other book largely contain the same ideas, but "The Other Path" focuses more intently on de Soto's experiences in Peru rather attempting to answer a very broad question. Because "The Other Path" focuses on squarely on Peru, it can more completely chronicle how his ideas have been used to better the lot of poor Peruvians, and have contributed to the defeat of Sendero Luminoso.

   I would have preferred it if the book did not purport to be a general answer to terrorism. While his ideas are very applicable with respect to Maoist revolutionaries attempting to (in theory) uplift the poor, they seem less relevant to "non-economic" terrorists, such as certain rich scions of Saudi families that fly airplanes into buildings, for example. But that is a minor point.




2. I agree that this book would have been more interesting if read before Mystery, but now the mystery is gone.

   This is good stuff just the same.

   Lots of good points that are useful in a classroom.




3. The original version of this book was written in the mid-80's to offer the people and government of Peru specific suggestions to combat Sendero Luminoso by making it possible for ordinary people to have a productive and meaningful participation in the nation's economy. This new printing includes a preface written in 2002 that provides the context and history for non-Peruvian readers and gives some analysis of the successes of the suggested reforms under the Fujimori government.

   The first part of the book is a detailed analysis of three sectors of the Peruvian economy: housing, transport, and trade (small manufacturing and retail primarily). In each of these, De Soto demonstrates how the barriers raised by regulation and legal process from both right and left wing governments in Peru have forced the majority of persons participating to do so in informal/illegal ways. The result is that formal activity bears the brunt of taxation and informals have little protection in terms of property rights, contractual instruments, and so on. The net result is that everyone is impoverished. This section of the book can be tough reading because of the amount of detail, but its necessary in order to understand the importance of the second half.

   The second half suggests that the Peruvian situation is really the reemergence of mercantilism, not a market economy. De Soto then provides some suggestions to peacefully transitiont to a market economy, and convincing warnings that failure to do so will almost certainly result in a violent transition.

   The points that De Soto makes are increasingly significant to non-Peruvians as societies like America have increasingly centralised economies. Ironically, the cover includes blurbs from both Presidents Bush and Clinton. One suspects that netiher of them actually read the book.




4. I love the little jibe provided within the title of Hernando de Soto's "The Other Path." It's a poke at "The Shining Path" (Sendero Luminoso), the Maoist Peruvian terrorist organization that wreaked havoc on de Soto's homeland beginning in 1980. de Soto's attempt in this book is to show that the more effective struggle is to make capitalism more efficient. To those who know de Soto's work, the solutions are well known: build a system of laws that allow one's residents to buy, sell and value property rights; and reduce the complexities and banalities of starting a business.
   
   If you've read de Soto's master work "The Mystery of Capitalism," then there is no new news here. In fact, "The Other Path" will look out-of-date with its yellowing statistics. So why the five stars? As a testament to de Soto's bravery. Think about the guts it took for him to research and publish this book in Peru during the tumultuous and frightening period there. What a statement.



5. Hernando De Soto's "The Other Path" is a much drier read than its follow up "The Mystery of Capital." I'm glad I read TMC first - it gave a global economic perspective that I could relate to and which interested me in reading more of the author's work. The Other Path is very detailed in its portrayal of Peruvian politics, the intricacies of laws governing property rights and transactions, and the evolution of businesses from extralegal to legal operations. While this very book was the tool used by the Peruvian government to successfully solve its terrorism problem in the 1980s, by legalizing the economic operations of the majority of its marginalized citizens, and while its message and methods are even more relevant in the current climate of global terrorism, the step-by-step detail makes it a tedious read and I couldn't get all the way through. I will, at some point, try again, but I'm glad I read The Mystery of Capital first.

5 comments about Ascent from Darkness.

1. I just got this book last weekend and once I started reading it my family lost me until I finished a few hours ago. "Couldn't put it down" definitely applies. What a great story! (or should I say stories? There are three parallel stories that converge to a memorable ending). Adventure, romance, interpersonal conflict, combat, humor...Ascent From Darkness has it all. It would definitely make a fantastic movie. Wilson's first book, Winter in Kandahar, is a great favorite of mine, but you can see maturation in his writing style and plot development with this new novel. At the end of the book, it mentions a new novel "The Ghosts of Anatolia" is coming in 2009. I can't wait!



2. I finally got around to reading Ascent from Darkness and I loved it. Like Winter in Kandahar, it's intriguing plot centers around an ethnic group, here the Kurds in northern Iraq, and provides a lot of perspective about the current situation in Iraq, especially the relations between the different groups. The novel is multi-layered and I found the characters credible and engaging. I highly recommend it.



3. One of the best action adventure stories I've read since Black Hawk Down. It's a well-written, fast-paced page-turner that focuses on the current situation in Iraq and Syria. Highly recommended!



4. We just read this book for my book club after one of the member's husbands, a Special Forces Major, recommended it. I was reluctant to read a book with soldiers on the cover, but read it because it was a finalist in the Indie Book Awards in Action adventure. I was delighted with the romance aspect of the novel. You'll love it!



5. I am so thrilled that Stone Waverly is back!
   
   I do not like to read books about war, but a friend convinced me to read Steve Wilson's first book, Winter in Kandahar, and I couldn't put the book down. There began my love of Stone Waverly.
   
   So naturally, between Steve Wilson's compelling storytelling and style of writing, I was thrilled to learn of his second book, Ascent From Darkness. I was equally as thrilled to learn that Stone Waverly continues on his journey.
   
   I have not changed my mind and decided to read books on war, but Ascent from Darkness is a book about mysterious happenings wrapped in the most mysterious of all happenings - love.
   
   May Mr. Wilson keep me anxiously turning the pages of Stone Waverly's life adventures for years to come!
   
   P.S. I expect some smart movie producer to purchase the movie rights to both Winter In Kandahar and Ascent From Darkness and turn them into the blockbusters they so deserve to be!

5 comments about Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad.

1. Caroline Glick realizes that we live in dangerous time. Sadly, many of our leaders and fellow citizens underestimate the threat of Islamic nihilism. Burying our heads into the sand will supposedly make the problem disappear. The intellectual virus of political correctness further hinders our ability to defeat our foes. Indeed, we are shackled warriors. Glick's warnings must not go unheeded. There may no be too much time left. This book is very important. You should obtain a copy as soon as possible.



2. This exciting and mesmerizing read is a represents a collection of writings spanning the years 2002 to 2007 analyzing Israel, the global Jihad, Europe, America and the Middle East. These were originally columns written by Caroline Glick, a veteran commentator on Israel who served in the IDF, as an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reported on the Iraq war. She provides excellent and jarring critiques of many of the issues facing Israel and the West today. Her viewpoints are both original and incisive.
   
   The writings are divided into ten themes including the Iranian threat, the Islamist threat to the world, the Iraq war and Disengagement. The critiques provided offer a very rich collection of assaults on the kinds of opinion that are either mainstream or `right minded'. Fania Oz-Salzberger of Haifa University is taken to task for her comparison of the situation of Muslims in Europe today with the situation of Jews in Europe in the 1930s. The article notes that "drawing parallels between the subjugation and genocide of European Jewry during the Holocaust and the treatment of European Muslims today runs dangerously close to Holocaust denial." Another article once again sheds light on the Kastner affair and shows that any attempt to rehabilitate his name (Kastner was a Hungarian Jew who saved the lives of 1,600 Jews but did not warn other Jews of their fate and saved people due to family and financial connections) constitutes an assault on history. Another excellent article dares to examine the media's role in creating various `blood libels' to implicate Israel and the U.S in `war crimes'. Glick is at her best excoriating `human rights' organizations such as Hamoked and Machsom Watch for their double standard of only caring for Palestinian Human Rights and never proving any help to Israeli victims, who also deserve human rights. In one the best and perhaps controversial articles the reader is shown how Europe has turned the Holocaust into a fetish, building memorials while working to destroy the present Jewish state.
   
   Collections of published essays tend to make weak reading. They often lack context since they were originally published just after an event and thus provide no historical view and assume the reader recalls the event, which at the time seemed important. Although this collection suffers slightly from this it makes up for it due to the level of intelligence and depth displayed in the writings and it serves as an important testament to the threats to Israel that exist today.
   
   Seth J. Frantzman



3. Israel is America's canary in the coal mine. No one does a better job of demonstrating this canary's importance to World Peace, in general, and to America's well being, in particular - and to the danger to both should this canary be extinguished. Caroline Glick is both brilliant and acutely perceptive. She also has a writing style that is easy to read, which makes the depth of her thinking and the accuracy of her observations that much more readily available to her readers. Glick is one of my favorite observers of the turnoil in the Middle East, whose problems have been made to appear much more complex than they really are. The only real question - which most try to obscure, and which Ms. Glick places in relief - is Does Israel Have the Right To Exist? On a scale of 5 stars, Ms. Glick is a 10-star author with a 20-star mind. KEN ELIASBERG



4. The redoubtable Caroline Glick is an outspoken commentator with profound insight into cultural currents, political trends and strategic developments in Europe, North America, Israel and the Middle East. In this collection of columns written from 2002 to 2007 she identifies and analyses the major threats facing Israel and the West. She insists that security, not peace, should be Israel's priority. Considered confrontational by some, Glick boldly challenges wishful thinking, duplicity and denial. The reader is immediately struck by her earlier predictions and conclusions that time has proved correct.
   
   Arranged by theme, the chapters cover the war against the West and against Israel as its frontline representative, all aspects of the global Jihad, the Iranian threat plus the sinister nature of both the Jihadist & the Western appeasement ideology. Israel is the warrior shackled internally by a weak government, subversive political elite and treasonous academics & externally by its indecisive ally the USA, a hostile Europe and the international mass media that overwhelmingly subscribe to political correctness, moral relativism and multiculturalism.
   
   Glick highlights the gravity of the menace on the cultural, economic and military fronts, fearlessly charging Europe with betrayal, exposing the naivety of public discourse in the West and truthfully reporting the real goals of the Palestinian and Arab leadership as they themselves articulate it. In the war of ideas, academia is the source & the mass media the disseminator of anti-Western pieties du jour of which the seeming benevolence masks a toxin of self-loathing, she argues convincingly. Amongst the most informative and insightful chapters are those on the media war against Israel and the USA, including analyses of the techniques. The double standards of certain "human rights" organizations are likewise exposed.
   
   One example of the West's loss of confidence & fragmenting psyche is the divergence of rhetoric from reality. In the first place this phenomenon manifests in Western & Israeli gullibility - taking seriously the words of the enemy while turning a blind eye to its deeds. Secondly, the trajectory of Left-Liberal rhetoric on the terrorist threat has removed this ideological cluster so far from reality that people are noticing as evidenced by imploding newspaper sales, public distrust reflected in opinion surveys and the proliferation of dissenting voices in the blogosphere and other media.
   
   In Europe, those who dare warn of the threat are demonized by the consensus-über-alles elites or intimidated like Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali who courageously defy the fate of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh. The media habit of lending equal weight to the statements of Western leaders and totalitarian monsters under the pretense of "objectivity" is offensive but overt moral relativism. When the media present opinion as fact or slant the news by selective reporting, deceptive headlines & the use of scare quotes, they cross the line into propaganda. When organizations like the BBC insidiously demonizes particular groups and undermines western values in its entertainment programs the process becomes downright sinister. And when western media knowingly disseminate Palestinian propaganda they become complicit in evil.
   
   Amongst her more disturbing observations are those - shared by French philosopher Chantal Delsol and authors like Bruce Bawer & Claire Berlinski - on Europe's rejection of the lessons of the Holocaust. The simplistic fallacies of nationalism being the ultimate evil & of war never being justified distort reality. The nature of nationalism, a neutral concept, must be judged by the manner of its expression. Pacifism permits evil to flourish; it is neither pious nor benevolent as it denies the concept of justice and even holds it in contempt.
   
   The lesson of the Holocaust is that each individual is obliged to distinguish between good & evil and then to fight evil. Those who refuse to oppose beasts like Hitler, Stalin, Milosevic, Saddam, Bin Laden, Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad are not good people. Indifference in the presence of evil is passive endorsement. How often must history repeat itself before people realize that they have a responsibility to oppose it, that neither they nor their children are immune to its destructive effects? The warning in an old song: "What comes to one must come to us all", remains true.
   
   The widespread cult of victim worship together with the projection of guilt has led to Holocaust fetishization in Europe. Glick contrasts the memorials to the dead with the anti-Zionist agenda of the intelligentsia and the political elites. The dead are cherished whilst the sins of their murderers are being projected onto their surviving descendants. She is aware that the contemporary Antisemite is sophisticated, often a left-leaning academic who views crude expressions of his obsession with distaste.
   
   Unmoved by Darfur, Tibet or Zimbabwe, he displays extraordinary fervor when it comes to the plight of the Palestinians. He heatedly defends Iran's right to acquire nuclear weapons (Israel has them!), and considers a unitary state the only solution to the ME conflict. He resents American hegemony whilst the idea of an "Israel Lobby" with undue influence on US foreign policy enchants him with an attraction erotique. Consciously or subconsciously, the existence of the Jewish State gnaws at his soul.
   
   Robert Kagan's The Return of History and the End of Dreams brilliantly complements Glick's work in which she considers the most critical perils to be Iran's ambition for regional hegemony through its nuclear program & support of terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas, the spread of a totalitarian Islamist ideology, the West's vulnerability arising from its dependence on Arab oil and the role of worldviews that undermine our capacity for self-defense. She sees signs of hope in rising public awareness, the sober outlook of some western political leaders and religious figures like Pope Benedict, the dedication of individuals who speak out in defiance of the consensus and the internet's abolition of media monopolies. Glick's is a voice of wisdom that shatters delusion, appealing to the civilizational foundations of justice, reason, truth and mercy that survive within us.



5. I'm gonna treasure this book and this author. Man, she can write! She's got the strength, the talent, the courage and the spirit of a warrior, a poet, a decent patriot and freedom lover. She's the best of Israel and the West. This American-Israeli young woman has been on the ground, she knows the people she talks about, she lived what she talks about. She's got the strength of Sampson and the wisdom of Samuel. And the heart of Ruth. I love her.
   
   The themes she writes about are:
   
   -How the Democratic Party has turned to Radical Left positions;
   -the de facto existence of the State of Palestine and hos it is run by thugs and heartless criminals, worse than mafia-like;
   -the astronomic corruption they have with the billions given them by the UN (the West);
   -Israel's political landcape, the names, the facts, the stories;
   -the state of affairs in relevant countries like Nigeria, Philippines, Irak, Somalia;
   -the Anglican church;
   -how US foreign policy is being hijacked by the Saudi family and friends like Condoleeza Rice and Robert Graves;
   -constructive feedback on how to win the peace in Irak;
   -Vietnam revisited in brief;
   -anti-Jewish media in America and how they operate;
   -the Iran threat;
   -the social landscape of Israel, the state of their freedoms, the tyranny of their Supreme Court, a who's who in Israel;
   -the role of the press in Irak, undermining America's effort, causing more lives to be lost than saved by their stupid falling in for the enemy's propaganda;
   -the intelligentuse of propaganda by the Palestinians and how their willing serfs in the leftist media in America succumb to their deathly charm;
   -the totalitarian state of the Academia in Israel and America, a de facto harakiri of Israel. Asked about the rampant anti-semitism on European campuses, the president of the University of Paris says: "What do you want from us? All we are doing is repeating what we hear from Israeli profesors." Absolute intolerance for the notion that professors with right-wing or even centrist views should be allowed to teach in their departments (of Tel Aviv University): "Over my dead body!" said one professor;
   -how Al-Hurra Television started out, financed by American tax-payer money, as a liberal, pro-American alternative to Al-Jazeera, and soon allowed itself to be used as a platform by terrorists from Hezbollah right after former CNN producer Larry Register took control;
   -testimonies from the troops on the ground in Irak, the humble silent heroes of the West: "No matter what you do for these people they are going to hate us because they are jealous of what we have. These people haven't made a decent contribution to humanity for over a thousand years. They hate us for our accomplishements.", "hopefully, she'll understand (the soldier's little daughter) that America doesn't exist because of selfishness, but because of individuals who made sacrifices for the greater good." Regretfully, many adults in the Left don't want to understand it.
   
   About the author's stay with the Army in Irak: "I don't know what made me decide to come here, when the opportunity arose, I said yes without a second doubt. But I do know what I am getting out of this experience. I have found my America. And I have discovered that I can never leave Israel. It sits inside of me, stengthens me, and comforts me to the center of my soul."
   
   This girl is too much to be true, but thank God she is true! Boy, she can write, poetically and patriotically.

5 comments about Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts.

1. This book really puts 911 conspiracy theorists in their place--as people who are more hostile to real science than creationists! I have yet to see a real, positive piece of evidence presented by the "truthers" (what an Orwellian phrase they use for their wacky selves.) The rhetorical trick used by "truthers" is trying to cast doubt on tenents of the scientific position. One example is the "steel doesn't melt trick" they used at first. As this and other pseudo-scientific positions were demolished, they moved on to new "facts" which are soon demolished by those who believe in reality. I think the "truthers" just hope to wear down people who believe in the truth through quantity of their theories rather than the quality of their theories.



2. Oh, and another tip for the writers of this piece: if you're trying to debunk a conspiracy about the federal government, make sure that 95% of our verbal testimony isn't from GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES.
   
   I am not a 9/11 truther, but I'm not exactly one who buys the whole story as well. Neither really seems to convince me, but Popular Mechanics' 'Debunking 9/11 Myths' is hardly the "cold light of reason" one of the reviews on the cover propels it to be. Neither is it a "nonpartisan" investigation as the magazine editor bizarrely claims in the afterword (it's hilarious that he calls it "nonpartisan", then a couple pages later makes some asanine statement about "radical Marxists" or what-have-you. Yeah. No bias. I believe it.) The whole piece also has the writing style of a 3rd grader, both in its lack of detail and its stunning shortness (90 pages). How on earth do they consider this a refutation of the 9/11 conspiracy theories when half the time they dedicate less than 3 pages of junior-high sized book pages on each individual point? And however short they are, they still offer what is mainly opinion and/or pure pathos-based logic and bias on mysterious and eerie happenings of that day, not to mention the fact that nearly all of the engineering and other testimony was, again, from government employees.
   
   I also want to add one more thing: a review on the back cover cited the 9/11 truthers' questioning the government as "toxic propaganda." Questioning your government is not "toxic", especially with a country with the murderous and hypocritical foreign policy of the US. The people who wrote this book, as well as the majority of the government today, no doubt would have looked upon our Founding Fathers' as terrorists. The only two people in Congress whom I believe would NOT have viewed the Founders as such are Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, aka the only two useful people in Congress. What a shame.
   
   Also for all those who tagged the book "lefttards", "left wing nuts", etc., most of the 9/11 truthers are paleoconservatives and libertarians. Most liberals are too ignorant to think 9/11 was an inside job.



3. Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts this is a great book it go into detail about 9/11
   and uses science,facts and common sense to disproves all the misleading and Wrong conspiracy theories .The conspiracy theorie orented liberals (dems) will probably hate this book like the hate hate every thing else that tells the truth



4. Most of the conspriacy 9/11 books are like the same no substance reporting done by the networks every night.
   
   
   This book is done more along the lines of PBS journalism shows like The News Hour and Frontline. It's that good.



5. I've not read this book, but noticed some reviews questioning the pancaking theory based on the observation that the buildings collapsed at free fall speeds. The claim is that this should be impossible, since the momentum of each impacted floor would reduce the velocity of the collapse, slowing the collapse speed considerably.
   
   These arguments are missing one major factor in their assumptions though. Momentum is the product of mass and velocity. The propagation of collapse would only be significantly slower than free-fall for the first few floors collapsed, since the weight and velocity of a few collapsed floors is not overwhelmingly greater than momentum of the next floor in the chain. However, when you get 10 or so floors slamming into the next, the momentum of the falling floors is much greater than the impacted floor, causing the impacted floor to be initially accelerated much faster than the gravitational acceleration rate, and only slightly decreasing the acceleration of the accumulated floors. As more floors are added to the stack, each additional impacted floor slows the collapse even less, until no appreciable deceleration is noted upon impact.
   
   What is perhaps even more telling is that those who question the pancake theory argue that a controlled demolition was used to collapse the floors consecutively to give the appearance of the buildings pancaking. But even this demolition theory is subject to the momentum argument. According to those who argue that momentum would have slowed down the collapse rate, the bottom floor should have been traveling as fast as the stack when it was impacted, otherwise its momentum would have slowed the collapse. That means the bottom floor would have had to start falling at the same time as the top floor to get around the "momentum problem" claimed by some. Obviously, it can be seen that this is not the case, as all videos show the bottom of the structure intact until about the time that stack reaches it.
   
   These "momentum theories" don't even hold up internally against their own notions of how the buildings collapsed. If you detect a problem (which turns out to not be a problem), but your own hypothesis is still subject to that problem, then you've got a problem.
   
   And, no I'm not a Dr. or a structural engineer or a physicist, but I did take college physics, which is about all that's necessary to understand this argument.

5 comments about The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization.

1. The author makes some good points. However, the book is shallow and so extremely disorganized hat it is almost impossible to understand. She jumps from one illustrative situation to another to generalizations, with little rhyme or reason. It is too easy to get lost in a morass of details which are inadequately tied together into a coherent thesis.



2. This book is riddled with logical fallacies and culturally biased expectations of how people "should" act without corresponding explanations of why these types of social structures are the only representations of "grown-up" behavior. Instead of making well-thought out logical arguments, Diana West singles out and fixates on particular events as evidence of widespread chaos and the disintegration of society, and beats readers over the head with self-evident truisms that don't really reflect any sort of logic or rational thought processes so much as personal political and moralistic agendas. She takes these rather oppressive self-righteous convictions and complains that people who don't adhere to these arbitrary behavioral guidelines and belief structures are destroying America. This somewhat masturbatory screed does not offer sound reasoning, does not pose convincing arguments, and it's very tiresome to read. It is any wonder she got hired at Fox News?



3. In this relatively short (217 pages) book, Diana West argues that America and the West have been taken over by a cult of perpetual adolescence, which has lead to the death of grown up behavior, the end of critical thought and has gravely weakened our culture as we are being attacked by resurgent Islam.
   
   I agree with the major thrust of her argument. I was not, however, terribly impressed with the book, for two reasons. First, these ideas are not new. Most of the main ideas here are, in my mind, far better explored in Mark Steyn's America Alone and Judge Robert Bork's Slounching Toward Gomorrah. She has some new insights, but not many.
   
   Second, West covers a wide range of material, and she reveals a distressing ignorance and lack of balance in her discussion of most of them. Let me give two examples: American popular music and Islam. Her argument in both cases is simple, and inaccurate.
   
   On music, she argues that, prior to the mid-1950s, we had good, complex, sophisticated adult-oriented jazz. At some point in the 1950s, the dam broke, the barbarians broke through and we had bad, childish, wildly emotional and out of control rock and roll. Of course, there is truth to this viewpoint. However, it is a more complex than that, and West misses all of the complexity. She is unaware that rock n roll, as we knew it in the 1960s and 1970s, is basically dead, and has been replaced by rap, which is a very different art form than rock. She also has no appreciation for how country music has developed in the last thirty years, becoming at one and the same time the musical heir of 1970s rock and in its lyric content a dramatic alternative to rap. While country music certainly has many anthems to the joys of unending adolescence and teenage rebellion, it also has many defenses of tradition and tributes to adult behavior, from Merle Haggard's clasic defense of traditional values, Okie from Muskoggee or today's country hit, Alan Jackson's, Small Town Country Man. On the whole, country has a similar level of adult sophistication to that of jazz, bearing in mind that jazz certainly had its share of boozy songs in favor of sex and drinking, as well as sophisticated explorations of adult emotion.
   
   On Islam, West's basic argument is that a good Muslim is a dead Muslim. In her view, Islam is a totally aggressive, totally barbaric attacking force, with zero separation of Church and State and zero chance of reforming itself. She sees moderate Islam as a fantasy and Bush as delusional in attempting to bring democracy to the Middle East. She does not say how we should respond to Islam, but the logical consequence of her argument is we will have unending war with Islam until either Islam is destroyed or the West is destroyed. Again, there is certainly truth to her argument, but she misses a tremendous amount. She says that Islam has no tradition of separation of Church and State. What about the Republic of Turkey, which has had a radically secular government since the aftermath of World War One? What about the Kurds, who welcomed liberation from Saddam Hussein and created a peaceful, stable enclave in northern Iraq?
   
   In the end, West seems to me a victim of the pathology she describes. Adults are able to see the world in complex, nuanced terms. Children tend to see everything as black and white. Measured by that standard, West is herself not especially adult in her thinking.



4. Ms. West really has a good topic, I just really wished she could have developed it more. In the first half of the book, she makes a great case for the "Death of the Grown Up". She traces the emergence of teenage culture back to the late forties, when the adolescent subculture began to have disposable income on a large scale. Since that time, the mass markets have cashed in by exploiting the nuances of teen behavior. This is all fine except that it appears that US teenagers have it so good that many refuse to grow out of it. Ms. West explores several main themes for this phenomenon which I found enlightening. For instance, if you've wondered why most television shows are written for the average 13 year old pubescent; why sportscasts are filled with endless ads for hair coloring, male enhancement, and rejuvenation schemes; why the term "adult" is a synonym for pornography; or why your neighbor's 30 year old son still lives at home, this may be the book for you. I only gave the book three stars due to the last half of the book. About midway, Ms. West appears to shift gears and go on a tirade against Islamic fascism, emphasizing how the Europeans are basically letting extremists take over their countries (because their leaders are all a bunch of wimps, presumably). This may be true, but I felt that the original premise of the book was displaced in favor of making a case against Islamic intrusion. Other than that, I enjoyed her insights and appeal for adults to start acting like "grown ups".



5. Imagine if the defining tenets of modern liberalism- politically correct "multiculturalism", "diversity" and "tolerance"- were firmly in place when Adolf Hitler attacked Poland to begin WWII. England would have promptly declared that the "war on blitzkrieg" had officially begun. It would carefully avoid any mention of Hitler and the Nazis. After all, aren't all cultures alike? Aren't all religions alike? And as Hitler himself said in Mein Kampf his ultimate goal was world PEACE! I know this because I read the book. Flash forward to 2008. Is that a Swastika flying over the U.S. Capitol Dome? Guess what will be flying over the Capitol Dome in Washington if the West keeps calling the current world conflict the "war on terror" in order to avoid offending someone's "peaceful" religion in the name of multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance?
   This in essence is what Diana West warns us is coming if we don't GROW UP and face reality. There's much more to this book than a dire warning of Islamic World Domination but it's the most important message, I think, of the entire book.

5 comments about Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying.

1. FAIR PLAY could've been featured in our Military Shelf section - after all, it's by the former chief of CIA counterintelligence - but deserves a much broader reading audience than those who frequent military libraries. FAIR PLAY presents both a survey of the real world of spying and espionage and a concurrent survey of moral and ethical issues involved in spying, and dilemmas which come from field experience every day. The blend of intelligence history, political insights, and social issues makes for a survey which advocates a clearer moral sense in U.S. intelligence officers - and that holds many lessons for civilians as well. Even the general-interest lending library will find it a unique, compelling read.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



2. I wanted so badly to give this book 4 stars but couldn't bring myself to do it.
   The concept of the book is interesting and Mr. Olson tackled it very well. The early part of the book details Mr. Olson's experiences growing up in Iowa, attending the University of Iowa Law School (Go Hawks!), how he came to join the CIA, and gave a brief summary of his career, although I say it was TOO brief and if Mr. Olson ever wrote a biography about his experiences in the Agency it would make a tremendously interesting read. He also mentioned that when he was recruited into the CIA, all he knew about it was what he had learned in Allen Dulles' book The Craft of Intelligence, which is ironic because I ordered that book on the same day as Fair Play. Both turned out to be greatly enjoyable.
   The largest portion of Fair Play focuses on different (hypothetical) moral dilemmas potentially faced by Intelligence Officers, with each dilemma being asked in question form, "Would it be moral if..." Following each posed dilemma several people give their opinions and answer the posed question, answering either `yea' or `nay,' and telling why they answered in that way. At the conclusion of each `dilemma,' Mr. Olson himself chimes in and gives some basic background on the issue raised (these are the most informative parts of each section).
   In the back of the book is an index explaining certain words and concepts, used throughout the text, that those outside the intelligence community may not fully grasp, which was nice to have as a reference. He also lists some of his most highly recommended books regarding the Intelligence community. Again, nice bonus.
   All in all, it's a great book. So, why did I want to give it only 4 stars? ...Because the book wasn't entirely informative, as I prefer. That is to say, the questions were posed and people were allowed to give their opinions. Granted, the purpose of the book is to highlight the various dilemmas and take into consideration various perspectives, but that can grow tired after a bit. At times it made me feel like I was sitting in a moral dilemma debate conference.
   However, in taking the following into consideration I feel obligated to give it 5 stars and absolutely recommend it: the informative reference section, the real-world input of the author, and the recommended reading list add a lot of value to the books content. Heck, even the small font causes the pages to be jam-packed with content. And lastly, Mr. Olson does indeed what he set out to do. It's worth the price!



3. 
   Fair Play offers the reader a peek into the murky world of espionage. CIA veteran Jim Olson has a unique perspective that few other authors can offer to anyone interested in intelligence. Fair Play is not your standard historical narrative. It is an interactive experience, which invites the reader to participate in fifty realistic and morally challenging scenarios that our spies must contend with. Olson adds further credibility to Fair Play by sharing with the reader a cross section of responses to his very realistic scenarios. These elicited responses are from accomplished professionals, whose vocations vary from the former Deputy Director of the CIA to practicing physicians.
   Fair Play includes chapters on Olson's under cover career in the CIA, changing U.S. attitudes toward espionage from the Revolutionary War to the present, and historical, biblical, and philosophical justifications for committing espionage. Armed with this requisite knowledge, the reader is thrust into true-to-life situations that U.S. spies actually face in the shadows today. This approach redirects the reader from the role of arm chair quarterback to active participant by asking what he/she would do in that same situation. Among the many topics covered are assassinations, kidnappings, interrogation, torture, drugs, seduction, sexual entrapment, and blackmail.
   Morality and espionage are not mutually exclusive. As Olson says, it is about time someone started thinking about how morality and spying fit together in today's world. The community he continues to serve faces monumental challenges. Its operators need to have a clearly defined moral code with which to take the fight to our enemies. This book represents a great first step towards providing such a moral code to our clandestine warriors.



4. In the vast genre of intelligence writing, this book is simply unique. In presenting the moral dilemmas faced by intelligence officers, this work is indispensible--both for practical training for the professionals and for educating the public about the realities of the profession.
   
   Where the book falls down, I'm afraid, is in its judgments about other works of intelligence writing. Olson's list of the best books for a professional library include two that have been discredited as historical works. He also repeats the mythical canard that Winston Churchill allowed Coventry to be bombed during World War II so as not to let the Germans know their communications were being read; he needs to read David Stafford, Martin Gilbert, and R.V. Jones on this score. Being taken in by [...] or by myths are disturbing failings for a former chief of counterintelligence.



5. Great book, great intro. to the intelligence field, and gives you a birdeye's view on the little spoken subfield, which is the morality of the intelligence field. Great demystifier of this field.

3 comments about Getting to Maybe: How the World Is Changed.

1. This is an extraordinary book that changed my view of the world in the first 25 pages. While the main focus of the book is a set of principles and approaches to adopt if one is trying to make the world a better place, the principles can be applied more broadly to everyday life. The authors show how small interactions with complex systems can produce disproportionately significant results if one first understands the system, using examples such as Yunus's micro-lending in bangladesh.
   Everyone should read this book.



2. I head about this book at the 10th Regenstrief Biennial conference on system transformation of healthcare in the United States. It was mentioned particularly by Paul Biondich and Burke Mamlin with regards to their work to create effective treatment for people with HIV/AIDS in Africa through an open source electronic medical record. (See more at http://www.slideshare.net/bmamlin/openmrs-transformation)
   
   The book essentially describes a Zen-Canadian approach to social change. Although loosely based on complexity theory (the one where a butterfly creates a hurricane), complexity theory is very complex, so I would have to say that it is very loosely based.
   
   Reading its stories of how profound changes had occurred in social systems such as Muhammad Yunus' Grameen Bank and anti-poverty and anti-racist activists in Canada, it makes a case the change proceeds from a number of phenomena:
   
   A deep and human level understanding of social ills nurtured over time which leads to tentative hypothesized solutions rather than a one-size-fits-all quick fix or a certain recipe.
   
   A sense of being called to action in a way that almost makes taking action a non-decision for the change agent.
   
   An openness to feedback in the problem solving work (a fair amount of time is spent pointing out the ultimate futility of structured plans given the complexity of the world.)
   
   A willingness to confront the powerful - be that oneself, ones fears or other social stakeholders who may oppose change.
   
   Of interest to me as program staff person at a medium sized US foundation, there is a fairly extensive discussion of the sins of philanthropy with regards to social change. We tend to require more specific objectives and reporting than is realistic given this model of change. We tend to over-evaluate our grantees in terms of these foolish metrics and quantifiable outputs rather than using methods of appreciative inquiry or developmental evaluation to understand the process. I get the sense that at least one of the authors is an evaluator and is tired of being hired to do the wrong thing.
   
   Most moving to me were the observations that change is so very hard. Most social innovations fail in important ways. Even when they do succeed, that success is only temporary or limited - it can be reversed by changed circumstances or become a new baseline from which to aspire very quickly. Social innovators in this view face enormous challenges - they are fundamentally alone, necessarily always questioning everything, and doomed by the complexity of the world and human limitation. Is there such a thing as Zen-Existentialism?
   
   There seems to me to be a lot of truth in these views. However, I have to say that these change agents' program officers are lousy. In addition to handing out checks and demanding unreasonable reports and evaluations, our major job is to support the grantees. No grantee should ever feel alone, if their program staff person knows what he or she is doing.
   
   I still don't know what to make of this book. I look forward to seeing more reviews from others.



3. This is an inspiring book that gives a good sense of 'complexity theory' and how social change can come from many directions.

5 comments about Beyond Tuesday Morning (September 11 Series #2).

1. By: Jeffrey W. Bennett, author of Under the Lontar Palm and ISP Certification-The Industrial Security Professional Exam Manual
   What can I say, I love a great story that has a great ending. Okay, for a guy, this story provides great role models. Karen Kingsbury demonstrate the great things that can happen when men take the lead to keep Christ in the forefront of their families. We all can benefit from heroes and we never know where we will find them. I'd say they can be found inside the pages of Beyond Tuesday Morning within the characters of Clay, Eric and Jake.



2. Karen Kingsbury did it again. Another fantastic story. Another, I can't put this book down until I finish it. I loved it! Great Christian fiction!



3. Great. A must if you have read One Tuesday morning.



4. It is an awesome book. I stumbled on to Karen Kingsbury kind of accidentally and it was one of the best things I have ever done. She is an excellent writer. This book must be read after One Tuesday Morning.



5. Received this book within a few days of ordering. Like new condition. I am very satisfied with this purchase.

5 comments about The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets...And How We Could Have Stopped Him.

1. Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins' THE NUCLEAR JIHADIST: THE TRUE STORY OF THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS SECRETS AND HOW WE COULD HAVE STOPPED HIM is a key title nonfiction audio collections must have: it tells the story of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the 'Islamic bomb', and the methods he used to obtain his information. In adding the knowledge of intelligence authorities and how they could have stopped him, this goes a step further and proves a gripping report fueled by Bob Craig's powerful reading.



2. The underlying story of A.Q. Khan and his life story from unimportant scientist in Europe to organizer of the Pakistan nuclear bomb projects to international trader in nuclear secrets is well researched and exceptionally interesting. It is a book of some importance.
   
   However, the book goes over the top in its allocation of bad press to Republican administrations between Eisenhower and Geroge W. Bush. Recognizing lots of mistakes by all sides and a realistic level of understanding of the reality of impotence by the United States would have made for a better presentation. (The book virtually ignores all of the years where a Democrat was in the White House and blames virtually all events in the Republican years.)
   
   A Republican or independent will need to hold his or her nose to get through the book. That being said, it is a very interesting book.



3. A passage on pages 86-87 describing a key character might as well be a description of this book. "He was not naive enough to believe that sanctions alone could stop a country determined to build the bomb..." it reads, "He knew that the real solution was to address the underlying political and security motivations that led countries to acquire nuclear weapons."
   This book is a window into the motivations of those seeking to acquire the bomb or keep others from doing so.
   The above description happens not to be of Khan, but of an American scientist and Congressional staffer determined to stop him. Their battle of wits makes a great read.
   The authors show us the motivations driving Khan --from the arguably noble political, nationalistic and religious causes, to the more common pursuit for personal status, wealth and success.
   The thorough portrait of Khan --a complex, fascinating figure formed by both the West and Pakistan-- provides a dramatic, readable narrative that pulls one quickly through considerable historic, poltical and technical background.



4. Subtitled: The true story of the man who sold the world's most dangerous secrets and how we could have stopped him.
   
   The events begin in 1972 when Khan started working for a Dutch technology firm that designed and manufactured centrifuges used for enriching uranium. Authors Frantz and Collins describe how he contacted Pakistani diplomats and offered his services to his country. He also displayed such an insatiable curiosity about nuclear related products that some of his coworkers eventually became concerned enough to report him.
   
   In 1975, Khan moved to Pakistan where he set about making his country a nuclear power. As Pakistan realized its nuclear ambitions, Khan accumulated wealth and power and become a national hero in 1998 when Pakistan detonated five nuclear devices underground. By then, Khan had established foreign markets for his expertise and his ability to deliver tightly controlled materials. The "Pakistani Pipeline" (an operation to procure restricted materials and provide technical expertise) had expanded its operations to newer markets.
   
   The U.S. administration ignored the nuclear threat because it needed an ally in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan and later in the war against terror, after 9/11. The Pakistani authorities arrested Khan in 2003. Parvez Musharraf pardoned him after a written confession and placed him under house arrest. By this time, no one knew who has nuclear capability.
   
   The book is well-written; it reads like a spy novel and its great strength is that it gives so many details that readers can see the complexity of the issue. The authors' bias that it is bad for nuclear weapons to exist at all does come through, as does their liberal slant on American politics. The authors do not acknowledge that the Iraqi invasion (blunders aside) does curtail nuclear proliferation in the Middle East (something that the authors' work on Iraq and Libya shows).
   
   The book's title is misleading. Khan was motivated by wealth and power, not by religious conviction (as one would expect of a "jihadist"). This is made clear as reader read the book.
   
   Overall, it's a great read, but leaves little room for optimism. It enumerates the dangers we all now face partially due to the cast of characters they profile. What is less clear is what we do now.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: A book that details the dangers that exist worldwide.



5. We Americans are so unread about what has truly been allowed to go on in the 60-80's, under the watchful eye of many US Presidents. There is enough blame to go around for both parties. If Khan can build nuclear war heads without interruption from his government or ours, what is happening at the moment? So many mistakes over such a long period of time. It is matter of fact, no exaggeration that I can tell. Well worth reading - a MUST! I just wish it were mandatory reading for high schoolers.

3 comments about This Connection of Everyone with Lungs: Poems (New California Poetry).

1. We can get a sense of the grand, encompassing scope of this book from its title alone, a phrase drawn from the opening poem: "Poem Written After September 11, 2001." This poem's central task is to articulate the model of radical interconnectedness upon which the rest of the book depends. Over its eight pages it performs this task through what essentially amounts to a slow zoom-out, from the microscopic level ("cells, the movement of cells and the division of cells") all the way out to global scope ("the space of the cities and the space of the regions and the space of the nations and the space of the continents and islands"). To call oneself a "global citizen" is slightly pollyanna-ish, but this poem still functions as a lovely vision: the way it is made elegiac by its positioning as a "post-9/11" poem feels slightly predictable, but that makes the elegy no less real. One of the more "important" poems in recent memory (let's set aside, for now, the question of whether poetry should aspire to importance).
   
   More interesting and important still is the book's remainder, a single long poem (broken into discrete chunks), entitled "Poem Written From November 30, 2002, to March 27, 2003." I think this poem is more interesting because it's doing the thornier work of dealing with the consequences of the first poem: if "everyone with lungs" is connected in a "lovely [and] doomed" global matrix, then what does this mean? If we can successfully expand our consciousness to the point where it encompasses the whole earth as a system, then what does it mean when part of that system (including but not limited to "our part") is attempting to kill another part of that system (including but not limited to "their part")? Is it possible to love humanity in an all-encompassing way when some of the humans that we're connected to behave murderously? Is a person killed in the Burij refugee camps important? What about someone killed in the Monoko-Zohi civil war? What about Justin Timberlake? How important is the weather? If you can make your own bed a place of "connected loving" and "pleasure" and "agency," what relevance does this have to the rest of the world, if any? How can you consider these questions seriously in a world at war without going insane or succumbing to crippling grief?
   
   I don't think that the book answers these questions, but I think they're the right ones to be asking, and any book that represents a sustained attempt to address them (lyrically no less!) gets my recommendation.



2. You thought this was err.
   You thought err, and that was err.
   There is no err anywhere.
   There nears err, but it is there.
   Like air. Prefer air like a sea otter confused as we are, my preciouses.
   Precious is was Precious does, and Precious is bare, with air in her hair
   and an heir in her snare.
   
   For we are confused as we are. Read and be confusedednesses.
   For the meaning of meaning is meaning and meaning combined with
   air and the hair of someone we remember, recall, call later when we've run
   across err and need console gaming.
   
   Oh, game show host's false smiles smiles back to me,
   back to me and my poetry's poetry back in the back where
   I eat a snackpack.
   
   For we are fullness of bologna and tasteless cheese.
   Tasteless.
   Bologna.
   Cheese.
   Cheese and bologna and bologna cheese taste tasteless fullness.



3. I read this book for my Writers on Writing Class, and the author paid the class a visit to discuss the book. Here is my response:
   
   Juliana Spahr compiled poetry for her collection, this connection of everyone with lungs that is part creative non-fiction and part political statement. Not including repetition, the poetry follows no form or scheme (except for line breaks/double spacing here and there) and the collection literally consists of two poems. The first, "Poem Written After September 11, 2001," is a single piece that spans eight pages. The second, "Poem Written from November 30, 2002, to March 27, 2003," spans 61 pages, but is broken up chronologically by date fifteen times. This unusual format speaks of a postmodernist approach to poetry, one that Spahr herself admits to not fully understanding. But she says, "it was the way it had to be written."
   The poems in the book read less like poetry and more like a diary, or rather like an intimate conversation. This comes from the conversational, albeit unhappy, tone and the use of addressing the reader as "beloved," The conversation topic couldn't be clearer: 9/11 has emotionally shaken up Spahr, and she's against the war. This seems fair enough; this is her book and her poetry, thus she can talk about whatever she feels like. However, the constant reiteration of her position on past- and present-day politics becomes tiring. Spahr told the class, "I sometimes feel like a hammer, because I feel like I'm always hammering in my point." And in this book, she has done just that. Her repetition of words, and constant list-making, such as the list of major cities in various countries on page 54 which felt exhausting and unnecessary, seemed to be more distracting than powerful. For example, one couldn't help but anticipate the upcoming word or phrase ("I speak for..." or "...exists"), and ignore the accompanying sentences.
   And yet another distraction was her use of pop-culture references. It appeared to make a point in the beginning: the American people were more aware of Snoop Dogg's affairs than world affairs. But as the "time" went on, and more pop-culture references thrown in, it was even more distracting, as it caused my mind to start thinking about the famous actor that was jus mentioned.
   However, the author does have many admirable qualities within her words. The strong, steady voice and tone within the poems, keen word choice and her ability to articulate pressing questions made reading enjoyable.
   In the end, this connection of everyone with lungs was an ambitious and noble project. Spahr attempts to put words to an unthinkable tragedy and controversial conflict. However, it seems almost inappropriate to read these poems if you are not a left-wing political affiliate. Her viewpoint on the war is made so abundantly clear that it becomes a hindrance to the beauty of her writing. I find that she was at her strongest when she was posing questions and observations about all people and human beings, of course, "everyone with lungs." It was when she made connections between people, and the simple beauty in things like love, is when she truly had my attention. Alas, with her many disheartening facts thrown in, and strong political views masquerading as poetic voice, she lost a potential fan.