Book Description
Sooner or later, each of us must face the day we develop a disturbing new interest in lawn care; the day we order sauvignon blanc instead of Rolling Rock; the day we refuse to see any concert where we cannot sit down. Sooner or later, each of us must face the day we turn uncool.
Dan Zevin, who “was never exactly Fonz-like to begin with,” is having a hilariously hard time moving from his twenties to his thirties, and he confesses everything in these comic not-coming-of-age tales. As he shamefully employs his first cleaning lady, becomes abnormally attached to his dog, and commits flagrant acts of home improvement, Dan’s headed for an early midlife crisis—and a better-late-than-never revelation: Growing up is really nothing to be reluctant about. In fact, it’s very cool.
Customer Reviews:
Dave Barry + more marijuana = Dan Zevin!.......2007-07-28
Dan Zevin has written a very funny collection of 24 essays about aging. If you've ever looked in the mirror and seen your mother (or father) looking back at you and then realized that was YOUR face, then this book is for you. The general feeling Zevin shares about aging is surprise. Inside he doesn't feel any different than he did in college, but on the outside things are changing. Well, except the clothes from college that he's still wearing.
Time alone has pushed him into a world of yard work and real jobs, no more all-nighters and the realization that some things really are easier if you're not high. I still feel 21 inside, too, even though I'm well past my expiration date. This is a fun book that reads a little like Dave Barry and takes some of the sting out of aging.
Oh no! Zevin is describing my life!.......2005-09-16
I'm a bit younger than Zevin and he's already describing my life, so I got a glimpse at what is coming up. This book is a quick read--a series of short entries on topics from lawn care to home improvement to the breaking of those decades-old appliances from your college days to teaching students at a local college. Zevin is a master humorist who delivers his message quickly and with a punch.
The absolute highlight of the collection is Zevin's essay which alternates passages from his journal during his junior year abroad with his experiences fifteen years later visiting his younger brother in Spain. Junior year was THE MOST INTENSE experience, closing down bars, being "stoked," sleeping in train stations, and finding truth and beauty in music and literature. That travel journal is juxtaposed brilliantly against Zevin's demand for creature comfort and different pace at age 35. "Confession: The world is no longer my oyster."
Zevin could be called a male Sandra Tsing Loh, but he gets to his point a lot faster and isn't whiny. This is a fun book, a quick, digestible read, and a great gift item for anyone in their late twenties or mid-thirties.
Funnest book ever!.......2005-09-07
It is nice to know that is now cool to be uncool - and I can now laugh about it!
Confession: I Am Too Old For This Book and I Liked It Anyway.......2005-06-11
As someone who is well into middle age and still grappling with the idea of growing up and being an adult, I loved reading Dan Zevin's startling confessions ("I went to a wine tasing", "I am a figure of authority", etc.). I still feel like an imposter when I do something grown up like spackling or buying insurance.
Some of Zevin's confessions have been done to death ("I take pride in my lawn", "I engage in home improvement projects"), but he's easy to take and makes even these stale subjects fun to read about.
Where he really gets funny though, is when he is ticked off. One of the funniest essays is about his participation, as a freelance journalist, in an etiquette class for eight- to twelve-year-olds. The teacher is prim and snooty and Zevin is outraged at the idea of a class where the kids are taught to suck up to the teacher and to be as uptight as she is. So he befriends the class slacker.
Another chapter that stands out is when Zevin and his wife visit Zevin's younger (by fifteen years) brother in Spain. His brother is spending a semester abroad, just like Zevin did so many years ago. He compares the diaries he kept as a twenty-year-old single dude in Denmark with his "adventures" as a thirty-five-year-old married guy who thinks he might be catching a cold.
Anyone who is funny is compared to Dave Barry, and Zevin is reminiscent of Barry sometimes, but I hope that he doesn't go stale like Barry and start to pull out the booger jokes whenever he's hard up for a laugh. No matter how much you are reluctant to grow up, there are some things that just aren't as funny coming out of a fifty-year-old.
Not that funny.......2005-06-04
I was hoping to find my next David Sedaris, but alas I did not. Reading these stories, the only thing that kept coming to mind was "this guy is trying way too hard to be funny." I myself am a late twenty something, struggling with many of the same things Zevin MENTIONS - but there is never a climax, never a conclusion, just rambling and unfunny rambling at that. He often speaks of not being able to fix anything around the house, in fact there is an entire chapter on that, however it has NOTHING to do with growing up, no realizations, and NO FUNNIES! I finished the book but simply felt annoyed for doing so.
Amazon.com
This collection of feisty essays delivers well-argued and persuasive assessments of Union military leadership during the Civil War. Stephen W. Sears, author of Landscape Turned Red (the best book on Antietam) and perhaps the foremost authority on General George B. McClellan, fits a lifetime of research and thought into 10 pithy chapters. Topics include the historiography of McClellan, the near-criminal conduct of Congress and War Secretary Edwin Stanton in the matter of General Charles P. Stone's arrest (here, Sears breaks new ground by uncovering plotters in Stone's own command), and a spirited defense of General "Fighting Joe" Hooker. One particular highlight is Sears's chapter on Robert E. Lee's so-called Lost Order, which revealed Confederate battle plans before Antietam and helped the Union secure an invaluable advantage. Historians have never agreed on when Lee realized what happened--just prior to the battle or long after; Sears's conclusion is that it took months before Lee understood.
An examination of the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid on Richmond is especially provocative, and arrives at conclusions quite different from those found in Duane Schultz's The Dahlgren Affair; Sears argues, in short, that Dahlgren intended not simply to free prisoners of war, but, as Confederate partisans have long alleged, to kidnap Jefferson Davis himself. This opinionated but informed book is a joy to read, and belongs in the library of any serious student of the Civil War. --John J. Miller
Book Description
CONTROVERSIES AND COMMANDERS is a fascinating look at some of the most intriguing generals in the Union's Army of the Potomac and at some of the most extraordinary events of the Civil War, chronicled by one of our leading historians, Stephen W. Sears. Sears investigates the accusations of disloyalty against General Charles Stone; the court-martial of Fitz John Porter; the crisis in army command on the eve of the Antietam battle; the Lost Order of Antietam; the revolt of the Potomac army's high command; the notorious General Dan Sickles, who had shot his wife's lover outside the White House; the murderous Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid on Richmond; the firing of corps commander Gouverneur Warren on the eve of victory; and the much maligned Generals McClellan (justifiably) and Hooker (not so justifiably). The book follows the Army of the Potomac through the course of the war, from 1861 to 1865, painting a remarkable portrait of key incidents and personalities that influenced the outcome of our nation's greatest cataclysm.
Customer Reviews:
Army of the Potomac McNuggets.......2006-11-15
In "Controversies and Commanders," Stephen Sears offers a number of interesting essays on the leadership of the Army of the Potomac.
In something of a response to Joseph Hersh's classic "McClellan Go Round" essay, Sears offers a sketch of recent scholarship on that controversial general and, just as in his biography "The Young Napoleon," Sears continues to insist that Little Mac had severe psychological problems which undermined his usefulness to the Union. Interestingly, Sears casually dismisses Thomas Rowland's detailed criticisms without actually answering them. That's disapointing to say the least and this may rank as the worst essay in the collection.
Nonetheless, the book bounces back with an excellent look at Ball's Bluff scapegoat Charles Stone and a solid, if rushed, account of the Fitz John Porter Controversy. Sears also provides an intriguing look at the state of the army after Second Bull Run and how McClellan resumed command. Oddly, despite Sears' view on McClellan, the reader is left with a very favorable impression of Little Mac's capacity to organize an army as well as inspire men. The essay on the controversial "Lost Order" before Antietam is interesting though not as gripping a narrative as some of the other pieces in the book.
Once McClellan is off the scene, Sears presents some of his most insightful essays. "Revolt of the Generals" offers an excellent look at the plots and politics that undermined Ambrose Burnside and Jospeh Hooker. An extended essay on Hooker shows a great deal of admiration for that general and corrects some of the myths that have gathered about "Fighting Joe." Looking at Dan Sickles, one of the leading political generals in the Army of the Potomac, Sears offers some insight into the controversies that plagued George Meade after the battle of Gettysburg. An extended essay on the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid on Richmond maintains that Edwin Stanton was the mastermind behind that nefarious operation.
The end of the war is barely covered and that remains something of a disapointment. After the essay on the raid on Richmond, the only essay is a look at the feud between Phil Sheridan and G.K.Warren which led to Warren's removal at Five Forks. Warren's tragic struggle for vindication (he died before a court cleared him of some of the more grave accusations) is also covered.
The book is useful certainly and some of the essays are excellent. Nitpickers can find places where Sears contradicted some of his other works. Sears is an excellent writer and a sharp craftsman of words. The chief problem, besides the complete lack of focus on the Overland campaign, is Sears' continued trashing of McClellan. Had Sears simply questioned Little Mac's abilities, there would be no problem. But Sears continues to insist that McClellan was paranoid, delusional and suffered from crippling psycholgical problems. Sears is a historian and not a psychologist. A historian has to be very careful not to throw around terms that he simply can not support and Sears fails to do that, as can be seen in the response to Rowland. By his own logic, it would not be unfair to say that Stephen W. Sears has crippling mental and emotional issues in terms of dealing with George McClellan and that hampers him as a historian. Is that fair ? Of course not which is why Sears needs to be more of an armchair general and less of an armchair shrink.
Controversies and Commanders.......2004-05-31
Stephen Sears' CONTROVERSIES & COMMANDERS "examines ten incidents of war as waged by the Army of the Potomac in which `controversy' and commanders' were spoken in the same breath." In the process he examines the court-martialed and the cashiered, the mad and the mutinous. Not surprisingly for the man who has written the biography and edited the selected papers of that most controversial of Civil War generals, Sears seldom strays far from the aura of George B. McClellan.
Indeed, the book's first essay concerns Little Mac and his treatment by the historians. It arrives at the decidedly uncontroversial conclusion that McClellan was a deeply flawed warrior general and a highly expert executive general.
We pick up a little speed with the second entry on the `Ordeal of General Stone,' who was arrested in 1861 after the debacle at Ball's Bluff. Sears does a masterful job in explaining the political pressures at work behind the scenes in both Gen. Stone's arrest and in the court-martial of McClellan's protege Fitz John Porter, which is the topic of the third essay.
`September Crisis' and `Last Words on the Lost Order' rework very old subjects indeed, and Sears has nothing much new to say about McClellan's reinstatement to his old role as commanding general of the Army of the Potomac or on the discovery of SO191, the famous lost order that would allow McClellan to whip Lee at Antietam.
Jumping ahead a bit, no book about Civil War controversies would be complete without the embodiment of controversy, the political general Dan Sickles. The infamous Dahlgren raid on Richmond and the little discussed removal of General Warren by feisty Phil Sheridan during the war's last battle are also treated.
I found Sears' essays on the revolt of the generals and a defense of Fighting Joe Hooker the most compelling. Sears brings a sense of order to the tangled tale of the knaves and marplots among the officers following Little Mac's final dismissal and the arrival of General George Meade. "It had," Sears writes, "become virtually open rebellion in the high command." The villains included political generals, disgruntled holdovers from the McClellan regime and various ambitious loose cannons. Their first victim was the inadequate innocent Ambrose Burnside, who replaced McClellan against his wishes and his better judgment. The second lamb to fall under their knife was the epitome of conniving generalship, Fighting Joe Hooker.
Sears' defense of Hooker's reputation is poignant. (A little ironic, too, considering the rather harsh verdict he delivers on McClellan in this and other more extended treatments.)
Sears' defense rests on the testimony of Lincoln secretary John Hay and hinges on the interpretation of the Bigelow footnote. The incident in question is Hooker's behavior as commanding general at the battle of Chancellorsville. Hooker, never short of self-confidence or bluster, began the Chancellorsville campaign sure that his brilliant plan would lead him shortly to the gates of Richmond. On the first day the Union army met a terrible reverse (Chancellorsville has been called Lee's greatest battle) and Hooker was seriously injured - a pillar he was standing next to was hit by a cannonball and he was knocked unconscious. Drifting in and out of consciousness Hooker was incapacitated but never ceded command. Later in the day the Union lines stabilized and a majority of his lieutenants recommended resuming the offensive the next day. Going against this advice, and casting a cloud over his career, Hooker ordered a retreat.
Hooker, like Ulysses Grant, had a reputation as an alcoholic that preceded his Civil War career. Again like Grant he had apologists. Lincoln's personal secretary, John Hay, is quoted by Sears as observing that it took very little alcohol to make Hooker seem drunk. This testimony is used to counter the claim of some historians that Hooker, who vowed to abstain from spirits upon his promotion, perhaps needed a shot or two to steel his courage.
The Bigelow footnote speaks to Hooker's irresolution, and Sears refutes its authenticity. The footnote first appears in 1910, and cites as its source an aide to General Abner Doubleday, who asked Hooker what happened to him at Chancellorsville and was reportedly told: "Doubleday, I was not hurt by a shell, and I was not drunk. For once I lost confidence in Joe Hooker, and that is all there is to it." Whether suffering from the d.t.s or, as Sears would have it, a severe concussion, Hooker acted like a man who'd suffered a sudden lack of confidence in himself. The Bigelow footnote fits regardless of its authenticity.
CONTROVERSIES & COMMANDERS may be a little thick for someone new to the topic. For the Civil War buff it's a treat.
Sears at his very best.......2004-04-08
There were a lot of battles during the Civil War but the one battle that often gets over looked is the political battle. This book examines the political battles that raged on inside the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. Battles that at times that became so bad that they nearly crippled the entire army.
This book isn't really one solid story but a series of short stories written by Stephen Sears that examine specific incidence inside the army. We see the Corp Commanders of the army revolt against more than one commander as both Burnside and Hooker have their Corp commanders go behind their backs to get them relieved. We see General Stone arrested in one of the worst cases of scapegoating during the war and Dan Sickles, the epitome of the political general. And looming over all of this is the shadow of George McClellan.
I was almost surprised by this book. I've liked every book I've read by Sears and expected to enjoy this one but I really found this to be one of his very best. Sears does a great job. His piece on Dan Sickles makes you almost want to stand up and throttle the man.
Essays on the Army of the Potomac.......2003-12-18
Stephen W. Sears is one of the better-known Civil War Historians alive. A former editor of American Heritage, he's been writing books on the Civil War for about 20 years now, and has concentrated almost exclusively on the Army of the Potomac, and its nemesis the Army of Northern Virginia. This volume contains ten essays ostensibly on the Army of the Potomac, though one (the Lost Order essay) is really about Lee's army.
The essays are topical rather than combat-oriented. There are two discussions of a particular character's treatment by historians: in one installment, Sears insists that McClellan deserves the bad reputation he's gotten from historians, in another he carefully dissects Hooker's fall at Chancellorsville, and decides he's been unfairly condemned by his colleagues. Several other essays deal with incidents (the Dahlgren Raid, the crisis between 2nd Manassas and Antietam). Two essays are about generals who were wronged by their superiors: Charles Stone as a result of Ball's Bluff, Gouvernor Warren at Five Forks. One of the essays is a straight mini-biography, of Dan Sickles, the colorful character who shot his wife's lover and went on to be a Civil War hero, at least in the newspapers. One deals with an unsolved mystery, that of the fabled lost order at Antietam.
Most of these essays are valuable and interesting. I only had objection to one: Sears accepts without much discussion that the famed Dahlgren orders (calling for Richmond to be burned and the Confederate leadership to be murdered) are authentic. Without going into details, I've always found this explanation to be improbable in the extreme. Sears seems to dislike Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and places most of the blame for the plot on his shoulders.
Other than that, the history here is to my mind impeccable, and the writing is clear and readable throughout. I enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to all Civil War buffs.
Fascinating essays on the Civil War.......2003-09-22
"Commanders and Controversies" is a series of essays, some previously published, on issues and personalities that still leave enthusiasts, and some historians, shaking their heads. Dan Sickles, the "General's Revolt", and thoughts on the infamous lost orders 191 are just three of the chapters. As with any collection like this, some of the essays are more interesting to this reader than others. The chapter of the court martial of Fitz-John Porter being one of the latter.
Perhaps the most interesting chapter is "Fighting Joe" Hooker's. Sears thesis is he was/is unjustly condemned after Chancellorsville. His subordinates, who frankly varied widely in simple competence, worked against him and his plan, turning what should have been a battle of annihilation into another defear for the Army of the Potomac. Sears made this point as well in his outstanding "Chancellorsville", but here he adds a little more background and detail. Overall, this is a great read, like all Sears' works and good history as well. Recommended.
Product Description
A fascinating look atsome of the intriguing Union generals and the controversies that swirled around them
Amazon.com
In a retrospective look at the war on drugs in the United States, journalist Dan Baum calls the nation's drug policy "as expensive, ineffective, delusional and destructive as government gets." He examines the Nixon White House's effort to turn the drug war to political advantage and the Carter Administration's brief flirtation with decriminalizing marijuana. He also details the cover-ups and blunders of some of the biggest drug busts in the country's history. Yet despite the policy's ineffectiveness, at least 85 percent of Americans oppose legalization. Baum sheds light on the reasons for this issue and calls for radical compromise.
Book Description
In a retrospective look at the war on drugs in the United States, journalist Dan Baum calls the nation's drug policy "as expensive, ineffective, delusional and destructive as government gets." He examines the Nixon White House's effort to turn the drug war to political advantage and the Carter Administration's brief flirtation with decriminalizing marijuana. He also details the cover-ups and blunders of some of the biggest drug busts in the country's history. Yet despite the policy's ineffectiveness, at least 85 percent of Americans oppose legalization. Baum sheds light on the reasons for this issue and calls for radical compromise.
Customer Reviews:
A great book!!.......2007-09-14
This book was a complete and thorough account of the history of US drug war. I loved it.... it was unbiased and covered all the facts.
The War on Drugs? An Abysmal Failure.......2006-02-05
Each year illicit drugs claim the lives of at least 450 Australians. In WA alone, heroin overdoses have cost more than one life per week so far this year. Politicians, health officials, the police and community in general are struggling to devise a solution to this drug menace.
American journalist, Dan Baum, in 'Smoke and Mirrors', has convincingly shown how NOT to approach the problem. Drawing on extensive research in the US, he begins his account after President's Nixon's election in 1968 and traces the ultimately futile War on Drugs through to the early phases of the Clinton Administration. Baum takes the reader through a series of case studies, anecdotes and interviews with key players in the drug war, and repeatedly exposes the cynicism, folly, ineptitude and sometimes racism of politicians and bureaucrats in trying to cope with drug use and abuse in society. Always in the background and, for Baum, at the heart of the problem, is the hitherto unchallenged policy of prohibition which Baum makes clear is seriously flawed in both practice and principle.
The cost of this unswerving campaign is staggering by any account. During the Bush years alone, $120 billion was spent on the Drug War. In addition, there has been the enormous cost in terms of human rights violations and crushed civil liberties, best documented by Baum in the harassment, imprisonment and occasionally shooting, of "harmless potheads and the generally peaceful growers who supply them".
The much-vaunted War on Drugs had its genesis in the turbulent 1960s when the counter-culture - as manifested in the massive Vietnam War protests, rock music and alternative lifestyles - reached its zenith. For Nixon, marijuana was a potent symbol of such "decadence" and its use was vigorously opposed primarily for this reason - not because of its pharmacological properties. Indeed, Baum makes clear that the Drug War has generally had little to do with drugs per se and a lot to do with crude political opportunism.
Seizing upon the issue of drugs to target political opponents, the Nixon White House went as far as to enlist television producers in the anti-drug fight through popular cop shows and sitcoms such as Mannix, Mod Squad, Hawaii-Five-O, Mission Impossible and My Three Sons. What they didn't expect, from another quarter in the entertainment industry, was Elvis Presley's unsolicited arrival at the White House in 1971 complete with a nickel-plated .45 automatic as a gift for the President. Elvis virtually begged to be co-opted into the White House's anti-drug campaign but seemed just as keen to souvenir another police badge of which he was an avid collector. The supreme irony, noted by Baum, is that the "King", a legendary dopehound, was a credentialed Special Assistant in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs when he died in 1977 of what was essentially a drug overdose.
By the mid-1970s when Jimmy Carter was elected President, drugs had all but disappeared from the political radar. A more enlightened drug policy was adopted even if it was orchestrated by politically naive advisers. A Presidential Commission on Marijuana, stacked with conservatives, made the embarrassing recommendation in 1970 that marijuana be decriminalised, a step which Nixon refused to consider. In fact, he blamed the Jews for wanting to liberalise America's drug laws.
However, the War on Drugs was resurrected with a vengeance when Ronald Reagan took office in 1982. Within a short space of time there were savage cuts to drug prevention and treatment, and a boost to "hard" drug enforcement bodies, eg. the Coast Guard, FBI and the increasingly powerful Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). More significantly, draconian mandatory minimum sentencing laws were passed leading to a doubling of the prison population during the Reagan years. The ideological shift saw the leadership of drug policy taken away from doctors and scientists, and passed to untrained, inexperienced and emotionally motivated parents. As a consequence, the drug war was sharply directed at teenagers and those who allegedly fostered their habits such as makers of drug paraphernalia. It was hardly surprising then, that a full 83% of Americans surveyed in 1986 believed it was proper to "dob-in" to the police family members who consumed drugs. One teenage girl in California who did so, soon afterwards found herself placed in foster care as a ward of the state while her parents faced 3 years in gaol.
The arrival of cocaine then its derivative, crack into the drug mainstream in the 1980s - both largely media beat-ups according to Baum - fueled wild speculation. By then, anti-drug rhetoric was reaching fever-pitch as evidenced by bizarre and hysterical pronouncements from those in the forefront of the drug debate. One prominent Congressman wanted to exile drug offenders to remote Pacific islands. William Bennett, Reagan's top drug czar and himself a chain-smoker, suggested beheading drug dealers while one of his high-ranking colleagues ventured the opinion that "homosexuality seems to be something that follows from marijuana use". Former LAPD chief, Darryl Gates, proclaimed that "casual drug users should be taken out and shot ...". Even Nancy Reagan, who framed the naive slogan of "Just Say No" to drugs, weighed in to the debate on recreational drug use. Brimming with indignation, she declared that the casual drug user is an "accomplice to murder".
Meanwhile, those dissenting voices critical of the War on Drugs often remained one step ahead of drug enforcement authorities. Baum recounts several amusing instances of citizens who turned the tables on officious bureaucrats and ridiculed the po-faced anti-drug zealots. For example, when urine-testing became widespread in American workplaces, wily entrepreneurs started selling pre-bottled, drug-free urine through mail-order catalogues. A drug legalisation advocate embarrassed the McDonald's hamburger chain by pointing out that its plastic coffee stirrers were being used as cocaine spoons. McDonald's promptly recalled the offending items amidst great embarrassment. And when drug-sniffing dogs at airports were nabbing traveller's with large cash deposits, procedures had to be re-evaluated when it was discovered that minute traces of cocaine are present on up to 96% of all US currency bills.
In the concluding stages of Baum's account of the unwinnable War on Drugs, he points to the growing chorus of law enforcement agents, public health experts, judges, academics, influential newspaper editors and a few brave politicians who have begun to question the cost-effectiveness of prohibition and unswerving commitment to zero tolerance of drug use. Although he doesn't flag any alternatives to these failed policies, Baum makes it clear that the longstanding taboo of discussing any policy other than total prohibition, needs to be lifted.
Baum ends his highly readable and entertaining book with a telling quote from (non-inhaler) President Bill Clinton who stated in 1992 that, "The definition of insanity is doing the same old thing over and over again and expecting a different result". All politicians, please take note.
One of the most important books ever published. Excellent writing, and a very easy read.........2005-09-12
There is conformity in our society, and it is a scourge that kills human spirit. It's a kind of ignorance, a common human narrow-mindedness that is at the root of keeping human beings from tolerating each other.
Similarly, at the root of this book's subject is the conformed intolerance emanating from people who believe that alcohol, caffeine and tobacco are the only recreational drugs that should be allowed to be legal and that, more specifically, cannabis should be illegal. This is conservative American mentality since the popularity of cannabis, at least among American whites, the vast majority of Americans, is relatively recent as compared to the popularity of the former drugs.
Ruthless, corrupt capitalists are the main force behind our corrupt drug laws. This book provides factual information to prove that money and power grubbing politicians and other lawmakers and law enforcers are the people who make the drug wars corrupt. In fact, politicians, judges, lawyers and law enforcers stand to gain in many ways by joining this corrupt war on recreational cannabis users. Baum doesn't stop at pointing out this fact, he gives a list of these people, right at the beginning of the book, presented like a movie or play presents its cast of characters. This is good. For over the past 40 years, the real life story of conservatives who have sold their souls in order to bust harmless cannabis users and thereby boost their political etc. careers is very much like an incredible play, a tragedy on a mass scale.
Huge prisons have been built to incarcerate all of these harmless cannabis users, and it is a fact that during a recent recession, the prison industry (criminal labor) was one of the few industries that remained profitable. A conservative TV pundit recently exclaimed how proud she is that we now live in a conservative time. But we should not be proud of how such conservatives abuse innocent people. Which they do, very much so. IF I WAS PRESIDENT, I WOULD RELEASE ALL WHO HAVE BEEN INCARCERATED FOR DRUG USE ONLY. THEN I WOULD INCARCERATE ALL WHO HAVE PROFITED AT THE EXPENSE OF RUINING INNOCENT LIVES.
One of the excellently reported true stories in this book:
In the late '70s, there was a woman who became enraged that her local record store was displaying cannabis paraphernalia (pipes, cigarette papers etc.) because she felt that children should not be exposed to such things in a shop such as this. To some extent, I agree with her. But she and Nancy Reagan spearheaded the "Just Say No" campaign, a bastion of conformity if there ever was one. It's overkill. Why not legalize cannabis and then campaign etc. to remove the selling of it and its paraphernalia from the public's line of sight, just like minors aren't allowed to enter into a cocktail bar?
I'll tell you what I'm outraged about. That ruthless capitalist schmuck from New York City who pushed his cannabis pipes business into those stores. He didn't give a crap about the children. As a result of this kind of ruthless capitalistic behavior, the straights got livid, went overboard with drug laws and propaganda, and now hundreds of thousands of innocent people languish in prisons. Like in playing music, a little bit of sensitivity and compromising to others' needs goes a hell of a long way to furthering a better, more tolerant, openminded and ultimately less corrupt society. This is the direction that soceities such as Holland's takes, and it makes theirs better than ours. I'd love to be proud of my nation, but this is what keeps me from being so. This is America, a damn thieves' hall where anything goes as long as you're ruthless enough to get away with it. Where people kick each other around in the name of "survival of the fittest" while this mentality inevitably makes a hell hole of everyone's lives, particularly those who aren't greedy, who aren't so good at kicking people around. Ours is a society that is running as fast as it can away from tolerance. People who call themselves Christians and condone this behavior are corrupt by default; nothing could be further from the teachings of Jesus.
But surely the most outrageous of true stories described in this book are the ones about how parents and siblings participate in the arresting of their family members who use illegal recreational drugs. Particularly the rehabilitation centers that abuse youths who are sent there by their parents. What kind of a parent would do such a thing? I'll tell you what kind. The kind that has accepted the idea that careers, formal schooling and conformed behavior is the only way to live. This is extreme conformity. Most of the ancestors of such people would likely slap them upside the face for their inhumane treatment of their children. Absolutely incredible levels of inhumane conformity have taken over the minds and hearts of too many people in our society. It needs to stop. Or else we really will become living proof that Bradbury was correct in his prediction of a ruthless, overly conformed society in the novel "Fahrenheit 451."
Argument by Anecdote.......2002-03-09
This book will not change one person's mind. Sticking to anecdotes, eschewing statistics and analysis, Baum strives to create an atmosphere of sinister conspiracy. But the simple fact that political spinmasters were involved in creating and selling the drug prohibition policy does not hopelessly discredit it. After all, politicians had to sell the Civil Rights Act, the New Deal, involvement in WWII, emancipation of the slaves, and everything else the government's ever done.
Like most people who'd be motivated to seek out a book on the War on Drugs, I am sympathetic to Baum's general idea-- the War on Drugs goes too far, and a little treatment would sure go nice with, or maybe even in place of, locking up tons of people, many of whom are black. But to those of you looking for a balanced, informative overview of the history of the drug war, keep moving. This ain't it.
An excellent history on the War on Drugs.......2002-01-05
The book Smoke and Mirrors is a history of the War on Drugs launched by Richard Nixon and that continues to this day. It is very critical of the War and shows the faults of the War and its negative consequences on American society.
The book does not bash just Republicans and the right wing. In fact Baum makes it clear that Nixon's drug-policy was actually not that bad and certainly better than what was to come. Baum also makes it clear that Democrats jumped on the bandwagon and supported the War on Drugs just as much as the Republicans.
I was for legalization of marijuana before reading Smoke and Mirrors and now I have even more faith in legalizing marijuana. While I was aware of many things Baum mentions, I did not realize how much the Supreme Court has eroded our civil liberities via the War on Drugs. If you want an engrossing read while learning something useful, this is certainly a book to read.
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- Extraordinary Achievement
- Powerful, persuasive and fuelled by compassion
- Could this book hold the solution to climate change?
- Essential read about the solution to climate change
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Contraction & Convergence: The Global Solution to Climate Change (Schumacher Briefings, 5)
Aubrey Meyer
Manufacturer: Green Books
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The Carbon War: Global Warming and the End of the Oil Era
ASIN: 1870098943 |
Customer Reviews:
Extraordinary Achievement.......2003-12-10
Meyer's book on C&C has caused a sensation in the UK. C&C is now the basis of UK government policy and opinion forming in the media [see this comment from the Independent on Sunday newspaper last 07 12 2003].
"The future of the planet now rests in the hands of three people: President George Bush, President Vladimir Putin - and the unlikely figure of one Aubrey Meyer, a former concert violinist from east London. President Bush has set out to kill the Kyoto Protocol. Despite growing support in the US for addressing climate change, he has spared no effort in stopping it coming into effect. He is putting the screws on President Putin. Under the protocol's rules, it now only needs Russia's ratification to come into force. The signals from Moscow are mixed, but Putin is thought to be waiting to see whether the US or the European governments, who support Kyoto, will come up with the best price.
"And Mr Meyer? He is the still relatively unknown originator of a body that is fast becoming the leading contender in the fight against global warming, after Kyoto. To that end, he has set up the Global Commons Institute. Michael Meacher, the former Environment minister, endorses the plan - dubbed "contraction and convergence" - on page 22. The Royal commission on Environmental Pollution, the World Council of Churches, and African governments have all adopted it. Under the plan, every person on the planet would have the right to emit the same amount of carbon dioxide, which is the main cause of global warming. Each nation would be set quotas, adding up to a figure the world's climate could tolerate. They would be expected to meet them, say by 2050, and could buy and sell parts of them.
"Kyoto must be brought into force: there is no alternative. Then nations should start negotiating bigger cuts in pollution on this equitable basis - worked out in an unprepossessing London flat."
Powerful, persuasive and fuelled by compassion.......2001-06-27
Human-induced climate change is the greatest environmental threat today. Rising to this terrible challenge means overturning the global apartheid between rich and poor. For example, the United States, with a twentieth of the world's population, usurps a quarter of the global atmosphere to dump its pollution. Such inequity motivates this book's author: Aubrey Meyer, a musician who grew up in South Africa. In 1990, Meyer helped found the London-based Global Commons Institute to promote a simple and powerful concept that may yet break the deadlock of climate negotiations.
Simply put, everyone in the world has an equal right to emit greenhouse gas emissions. First, take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change figure of 60 per cent cuts to stabilise global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by 2100. Second, calculate the level of pollution each nation should be allowed. The book's eye-catching computer graphics illustrate past emissions and future allocation of emissions by country, achieving per capita equality by 2030. Emissions thereafter fall to reach safe levels by 2100. Climate damage will still result, but disaster should be averted. Global emissions trading of per capita shares will ease transition costs to a zero-emissions lifestyle, Meyer argues.
This `contraction and convergence' (C&C) framework has gathered the support of a majority of the world's countries, including China and India. It may be the only approach that developing countries are willing to accept. That, in turn, may spur even the US to ratify the Kyoto protocol. However, Meyer warns that the `sub-global framework' of the protocol with its `guesswork' of market mechanisms and `inadequate' cuts `could prove worse than useless' because the public would be lulled into a false sense of security `that something is at last being done'. Meyer's argument is powerful, fuelled by compassion for the poor.
The crux of the matter is whether grassroots support for global equity will defeat the powerful elite interests that currently enjoy the status quo. As one US delegate put it: `We won the Cold War. Contraction & Convergence is Communism'!
Communism or not, accepting C&C would require that the developed world eschews dirty economic growth. If global weather-related damage continues its present trend of doubling every 7 years, then by around 2050 the costs of climate change could exceed the total value of everything that humanity produced over one year. Has global capitalism finally destroyed itself by its own success? Let's hope so.
Could this book hold the solution to climate change?.......2001-06-26
There is little doubt now - even amongst mainstream political and scientific circles - that climate change poses humankind's greatest ever challenge. "I am not being alarmist," says Meyer. "[But in] the worst case scenario, the survival of all but a tiny minority of the human race comes into question."
This is not simply because of the increasing amounts of CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases that humans are still pumping into the atmosphere, but because the earth's natural regulating systems are themselves in danger of being knocked out of kilter. In a recent model the UK-based Hadley Centre found that warming temperatures would kill tropical rainforests in Brazil - turning vast swathes of Amazonia into desert and grassland, and pouring still more carbon into the atmosphere. Several more 'positive feedbacks' threaten to have just as much of a catastrophic effect.
Yet the solutions which have been proposed so far, like the Kyoto Protocol, have failed to garner world-wide support. This book, which proposes the Contraction and Convergence model as an alternative way to bring down global emissions fairly, could hold the key.
It's really very simple. The Earth's biosphere only has the carrying capacity to absorb a certain amount of carbon per year - and humans have to cut their emissions to a safe level within it. That's 'contraction'. Within this carbon 'budget', every human being on the planet has an equal right to the use of the atmosphere, so countries which emit more than their per-capita fair share must reduce their emissions, whilst those which emit too little are allowed an increase. That's 'convergence'. In a world where 4% of the world's population in the US are able to emit 25% of its CO2, this brings the concept of equity - fairness, basically - to the fore.
For many, equity is a moral standpoint. But it also acts at the level of realpolitik - bringing into the climate process those heavily-populated countries like India and China which are planning to dramatically increase their fossil fuel consumption in the near future. Remember: even if the Kyoto cuts are implemented in full (which they won't be), world carbon emissions are set to increase anyway by some 30% mainly because of the developing world. Why should these countries deny themselves the benefits of electricity, heat and transport simply to support the profligate consumption of rich Europeans, Australians and Americans? In contrast, by recognising these countries' per capita emissions rights, and even allowing them to acquire a tradeable market value, Contraction and Convergence establishes an incentive for clean development.
If you want to know more, read this book. It's an invaluable and readable contribution to a complex - but incredibly important - issue.
Essential read about the solution to climate change.......2001-02-23
CONTRACTION & CONVERGENCE: The Global Solution to Climate Change by Aubrey Meyer
Review by Dr. Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Policy Studies Institute, London, UK
Climate change caused by the greenhouse gas emissions from our past and present profligate energy-intensive lifestyles already appears to be having tragic consequences. If the reduction of these emissions to a relatively safe level is more important than the pursuit of economic growth, then it is clear that a framework for action is needed within which the reduction can be achieved.
This concise book profoundly and lucidly spells out such a framework. Its author, Aubrey Meyer, founder and director of the Global Commons Institute (GCI), logically calls it `Contraction and Convergence'. It requires the reduction to be completed within a timetable determined by scientific evidence whilst at the same time programming it towards an end-state of per capita emissions `shared out between people globally, equitably and sustainably'. This, he says, will deliver a clean and green form of prosperity which does not seriously prejudice the future of the planet. He argues convincingly that it is the only way of avoiding ecological catastrophe.
In addition to a devastating critique of the failure of economics to treat with the subject of the welfare of all mankind and the global environment, he provides a fascinating history of the process by which a transition has been made in the space of ten years from what was at first ridiculed as a totally unrealistic and impractical solution to a centre stage proposition at the heart of current climate change negotiations.
The effectiveness of his argument is reflected in a growing consensus around the world that `Contraction and Convergence' may indeed be the only realistic route to ecological salvation. For instance, last summer, the Royal Commission on Environment and Pollution and Jan Pronk, the Netherlands Environment Minister and Chairman of the Hague Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, supported the case for an international agreement based on the principle. In his environment speech in the City of London in the autumn, Prime Minister Blair acknowledged that the massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions must be achieved on `an equitable basis'. A month later, in the Hague, President Chirac stated that `France proposes that we set as our ultimate objective the convergence of per capita emissions'. It is extraordinary that acknowledgement by these two world leaders and others of the relevance of the concept of equity to the subject, with its seismic implications for the future of economic growth, received almost no coverage in the media.
It is clear that radical changes are called for not only in the policies and practices of government, industry and the business community generally, but also in our own lifestyles. If these are to be conducted according to principles of conscience and survival, we cannot continue to play down the significance of climate change. The fact that greenhouse gas emissions remain in the atmosphere for several generations makes it urgent that we take our responsibilities on this portentous issue far more seriously.
I can think of no better investment of time and no more effective means of jolting people out of their complacency on the ramifications of global warming than to read this remarkable book.
February 2001
Published by Green Books on behalf of the Schumacher Society. ISBN 1 870098 94 3. £5.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Town and Country Planning, published by Town and Country Planning Association on March 1, 2001. The length of the article is 707 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Contraction and Convergence: The Global Solution to Climate Change.
Author: Mayer Hillman
Publication:
Town and Country Planning (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2001
Publisher: Town and Country Planning Association
Volume: 70
Issue: 3
Page: 98
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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