Required Reading (11/13/05)
by Dean Hartwell
I have read each of the following books and have ranked them on a scale of one star (poor) to five stars (great). In addition, I have given a brief description of each book and what I liked about it.
New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer (Rodale Books, 2005) takes the best of Bill Maher’s “rants” on his TV show, “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Maher cuts right to the chase on current topics, such as John Bolton, drivers’ use of cell phones and Scientology. For instance, he calls estimation of the number of people at a protest “unknowable-like the size of space or where George Bush was in the ‘70s.” Rating: ****
The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation, and the Anatomy of Terrorism (Olive Branch Press, 2005) by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed explores the allegation of intelligence failures that led to the attacks of September 11th. He finds them unfounded and states that U.S. intelligence (and many foreign intelligence agencies) knew of the plans for an attack with considerable detail. Ahmed also details the connections between our government and al Qaeda, suggesting that the United States may have engaged in the planning of 9/11. Rating: ****
Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? (Columbus Alive, 2005) comprises over 700 pages of blogs, lawsuits and other communications about the 2004 election. Though it covers both points of view about the possibility of fraud in the election, it favors the side that says that Bush and the Republicans stole it in Ohio and other states. The book suggests, among other things, that Kenneth Blackwell organized distribution of disproportionately more election machines to Republican districts, touch screen machines that malfunctioned in favor of Republicans and statistical proof that the disparity between the exit polls and the final results were not coincidental. Despite its length, this book can be read easily by one with an interest in elections. Rating: ****
Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America (Nation Books, 2005) by Andrew Gumbel recounts the history of voting in the United States. Gumbel details cheating by both Democrats and Republicans, going back to the times when political parties organized shooting of would-be voters and bringing it forward to the disputed presidential elections of 1960 and 2000. He errs in downplaying the “Kerry won” theorists in the 2004 election by stating that exit polls showing Kerry winning were not done properly, but does mention the disproportionate amounts of voting machines in Democratic and Republican districts. Rating: ****
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do about It (Picador, 2005) by Peter G. Peterson warns the nation that current revenue and spending levels will leave the United States with no money to fund Social Security or Medicare. The book makes several recommendations, including cost-of-living adjustments based on price increases, not wage increases and using a means test to identify recipients of the entitlements by their wealth. Rating: ****
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (William Morrow, 2005) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner uses facts to draw conclusions about public issues. This wonderful book, for example, analyzes explanations for the drop in crime nationally in the mid-1990s, such as gun control, innovative policing and the aging of the population. They conclude that none of them caused the reduction in crime. The real cause was the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s, which prevented the people most likely to become criminals from being born. The book also discusses why many gang members live with their mothers (the gangs pay them less than minimum wage to deal drugs), the impact of one’s name on one’s life (high) and the deterrence of the death penalty (minimal at best). My first “five star” review! Rating: *****
Fooled Again (Basic Books, 2005) by Mark Crispin Miller confirms what many Kerry voters have suspected: that the Bush campaign stole the presidential election of 2004. He repeats what other books like Did George W. Bush Steal America’s 2004 Election? And What Went Wrong in Ohio have said about Ohio (hand recounts were fixed to match machine recounts) and makes new allegations about voting in several other states. He says, for instance, that in South Carolina, black men were told falsely by Republicans that they could not vote if they owed child support, that a vast majority of provisional ballots were tossed out in Florida and that the site helping military voters to vote absentee went down at an inopportune time. Miller makes his case with conviction, especially when he speaks of the mysterious lump in the back of President Bush’s jacket in the first debate (he says for sure that Bush had a listening device). Critics may try to dismiss this book, but the chorus of those crying foul over Election 2004 is growing louder thanks to Miller. Rating: ****